Caedmon: A Hymn of Betrayers and Fire Music
by en extase
Summary: Blind faith is easily shaken. In the Chamber of Secrets, the Horcrux-shade of a Dark Lord regains physical form and Harry finds within himself something he was never meant to know: ambition. Rewrite of To Define Treachery.
1. Murders in Half-Darkness

Note: First lines of dialogue and text are borrowed from _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_.

* * *

**Caedmon: A Hymn of Betrayers and Fire Music**

By en extase

**Chapter I**: Murderers in Half-Darkness

* * *

The shimmering letters rearranged themselves into the name Harry hated above all others.

_I AM LORD VOLDEMORT._

"You see?" Riddle whispered." It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, known only to my most intimate friends, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins flows the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch?"

Perhaps it was not so surprising, Harry reasoned. The Dark Lord's legend was so steeped in bloodshed and fear that one lost sight of how he had once been a student in these same halls. Just like everyone else. Before the wizarding world feared to utter his name, he had been young and craving power - but had not found it yet.

And now he knew.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"No, Harry. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

There was a short lull as Harry mustered his courage.

"You're not," Harry said quietly, raising his chin.

"Not what?" snapped Riddle.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," Harry repeated, this time with greater conviction. "Sorry disappoint you, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days."

The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look.

"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!" he hissed.

Harry held his tongue.

"No. You don't know what you're saying," Tom said with conviction. "You think too much in the present – you don't realize how merciful I've been."

The words sounded ridiculous to Harry.

"That's your idea of mercy?" he accused, gesturing at Ginny's unmoving form.

"You need to be reminded," Tom continued, his tone lighter now.

Harry came to the realization that Tom's happiness was more terrifying than his anger.

"Don't touch her."

"I've eluded him at every turn, striking at the students of his hallowed institution with impunity."

Tom's ire vanished, replaced by a terrifying certainty.

"It is by my mercy, and mine alone, that your mudblood friend is still alive."

Hermione.

_If that basilisk had lingered a little longer before retreating…_

Harry's stomach lurched fearfully at the implications.

The basilisk could easily have slaughtered each of its victims before withdrawing. A slight prick of its venomous teeth might suffice, or it could have simply swallowed them whole. He shut his eyes at the mental image of children helplessly sliding down the beast's gullet.

"How do you think your revered headmaster felt, knowing each petrification could have been a death at my whim?"

Riddle's gleeful voice was rising.

"I had killed one of his students before, after all. It must have eaten at him, searching the castle for hours yet finding nothing, despite being its headmaster for generations. Hogwarts," he declared, "never belonged to him."

The parting words Dumbledore had spoken to Minister Fudge returned to him.

_"You will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."_

They had seemed cryptic when he first heard it. Full of hidden reassurance, as if Dumbledore could offer a way out even when all the doors were sealed.

Now he saw that they were utterly empty of meaning.

Voldemort had never forced a confrontation with Dumbledore – but he hadn't _needed_ to. Not when he could drive Dumbledore from his seat of power without even once coming face to face.

"So you see, I'm not the senseless, remorseless killer you believe you me to be. I end lives for a purpose. The only death this year will be dear Ginevra's."

"What do you mean?" Harry said, alarmed.

"She's given much – but not quite enough. Her life diminishes, so that I may become tangible. There's not much left to take now."

"She dies, and you get your body back," Harry said slowly, a terrible understanding dawning on him.

This was the dirty secret. The hero _could not save the day. _

"I don't mean to imply she will be the only death this evening. Leaving you alive, however harmless you are," Tom said apologetically, "would invite no end of trouble. But perhaps I speak too hastily... Perhaps Dumbledore has a miracle hidden up his sleeve?"

Stricken by fear, Harry watched Riddle stride away from him and stop between the high pillars and look up into the stone face of Slytherin, high above him in the half-darkness. Riddle opened his mouth wide and hissed, but Harry understood what he was saying…

A mass of shadows concealed the basilisk as it coiled around the serpentine columns, slowly encircling him. Serrated teeth glinted dimly in the reflection of the eternal torchlight.

An icy sensation began spreading throughout Harry's body, stealing every last vestige of warmth.

He fought desperately to master the fear numbing his limbs.

_You survived him once when you were still in the cradle, _he thought fiercely.

He shut his eyes and slowly backward, gambling his life in a reckless throw of the dice.

Harry stumbled backward. His footsteps splashed through the shallow puddles of stagnant water.

His back met the contoured surface of a pillar. It steadied him, and he exhaled.

"That's it? You're going to kill me without knowing the secret behind your first defeat?" he called loudly.

A momentary pause followed.

The silence birthed misery. It festered within him, making his muscles quiver in the throes of wrenching hyper-tension. Unlike in his encounter in front of the Mirror of Erised with Voldemort's spirit, his life wasn't the only one at risk and he'd never coped with the ridiculous magnitude of that responsibility before. He despised this feeling more than anything, knowing that his fate was at the mercy of Tom's whim.

"What?" Riddle finally asked, tone deathly quiet.

Harry leveraged every word carefully. He needed clarity of mind now more than ever.

_Precision, suggestion, temptation_ - these three were all necessary.

"The Killing Curse has never failed in its history, not once since its invention. Not until you cast it against me. I'm sure you wondered why."

Riddle stayed expressionless, until the beginnings of a dark smile formed on his mouth.

"I certainly did. My only question is, how would_ you_ know?"

"Dumbledore told me," Harry shot back.

"Speak. Leave nothing out."

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He slowly closed it, and waited for something to leap off his tongue. He blinked several times in succession, eyelashes fluttering rapidly. He wiped away the beads of sweat on his forehead. He was drawing a blank. He felt like he was in Snape's classroom, stumped by what a bezoar was. Why couldn't he come up with something?

Tom began chuckling.

"You don't know."

He visibly relaxed, and his chuckles faded quietly into silence.

'I never would have dreamed… I take my words back," he decided. "You have potential. You... you cling to survival_._ Fear, doubt, self-preservation at all cost- these are your imperatives when it comes down to it. But you have the cunning to master yourself... For a short while, at any rate."

He gestured to the basilisk awaiting his orders.

"No doubt you would have grown into a fine foe."

Tom stepped away, and regarded him with cold, clinical eyes.

"What?" Harry croaked, not trusting him to say anything more as the basilisk slithered towards him.

"Rise up to the occasion, little hero," Tom said simply, climbing atop the statue's pedestal and plopping himself down. He cocked his head to the side and let it rest on his hand as he swung his legs over the edge, watching the proceedings with open curiosity.

Ripples traveled through the puddles of sewage water as the basilisk closed the distance. Its mouth unhinged and stretched until it could probably swallow him and an entire class of students. Its neck rose, and its shadow eclipsed Harry, dwarfing him like an insect.

It moved with impossible speed, far exceeding what Harry expected from a creature of its massive bulk. But Harry reacted on instinct, breaking into a diagonal run and throwing himself out of the way of its first lunge and arriving behind its head with perfect timing. Its hissed in surprise, and its breath fouled the air with a rotting stench. In its lifetime, and since awakening from its slumber, few prey had retained the presence of mind to flee or fight back.

He could already sense it moving, its immense body sliding forward. He gritted his teeth and took a running leap, trying to hurl himself straight over it. He landed on just high enough on its bulk that he could fling himself over, and tumbled to the ground. The shock of the hard landing forced the breath from his lungs, winding him.

By the time he regained his bearings and made to move, it was over. He was pinned to the ground in mid-stride. The basilisk began dragging his form back and forth. His robes whipped around him wildly and he gasped for breath as his face was pressed into the slimy floor.

"That will do," Tom's voice rang out.

The monster rose, but there was a sharp snapping sound as the fang it had skewered Harry with was broken off. It hissed horribly as it reeled back, and its forked tongue caressed the cracked molar.

At first, there was the shock of the blunt trauma of a fang piercing through his back and puncturing through his front.

Then, molten pain erupted in him.

It was from the flesh parted by the fang and radiated outward with frightening speed, overloading his senses. He lay there, spasming helplessly and unable to make a sound. Insensate with pain, he was reduced to weeping silently.

He lost track of how long he laid there, brought to the brink of oblivion by the venom agent. He stirred, and subconsciously reached out with a hand to claw his way forward, alternating arms sluggishly.

Riddle watched quietly as Harry dragged himself to the prone form of the girl who he'd risked so much and come so far to save, only to fall so tragically short.

"You sick _monster!_" Harry screamed hoarsely, his voice muffled by the floor. His vision blurred, paroxysms of pain wracking his frail body. His legs were locked up and tremors shook his arms.

Hatred welled up in him uncontrollably for this cruel teenage boy who was putting him through this torture. He seized upon it. His strength was rapidly fading and hate was the only emotion he had left potent enough to fuel his last efforts. He knew his purpose, and all uncertainty dissipated. Tom had been _just_ arrogant enough to gloat a_ little too long_ on how Ginny was still important to his plans.

He reached behind him and wrenched the fang from his back, feeling every devastating tear of internal organs and muscle and sinew. His vision flashed a searing white like a megawatt camera going off in front of his face as unimaginable havoc assailed his neural pathways, nervous system, _everything_. He reared back and steadied his hand as he found his grip and held it poised. With a strangled cry, he brought it down onto Ginny's unmoving chest, but not with enough force to pierce the sternum. It jarred his hand enough so that he dropped it and it rolled away from him.

_You did nothing to deserve this._

Fighting to keep his concentration, he heaved himself forward into a clumsy lunge and managed to snatch the fang.

_You're so young and the world's been unfair to us both...  
_

He existed in that state of liminality between an out-of-body experience and full consciousness. But he was in full control of the killing he was committing.

... _but I have to do this._

He aligned the fang in his little fist and stabbed her again, puncturing the bone of her breastplate.

_I can't let him come back._

He braced himself.

_Not ever._

A grunt escaped his lips as he brought it down one last time, carving through the delicate flesh. He let the fang clatter from his nerveless fingers and began to back away. His legs buckled though and he slipped onto Ginny's dying body. She was absolutely still, inert despite the mortal wound he'd delivered. Blood seeped through the hole he'd torn through her chest. He sputtered as it drenched him, horrified. He tried to right himself, and caught a glimpse of the motionless figure of his watcher through the reddened haze.

Riddle stared at him him unblinkingly under hooded eyes, his thoughts indiscernible. The only movement that betrayed him was the unconscious step backward he took at the sight of Harry's bloodshot green eyes and the desperate expression that made him seem so lost but filled with absolute resolve at the same time. Tear tracks painted his flushed cheeks, but he was no longer crying or fearful. He embodied wrath in a way no twelve year-old ever should.

"Voldemort..."

He was panting.

Every word was slurred as his lungs were liquefied, falling apart like shrapnel.

He dragged himself to his knees. Dully, he registered the soft footfalls of Riddle dropping down from his perch and landing on the ground.

"I don't_ care_ that Dumbledore isn't all-powerful."

And somehow, truth came to him in his fever-ridden delirium. One unalterable truth that would never, ever change.

He swayed from side to side and nearly fell, but he thrust out his arm and used it to support his weight, ignoring the protestations of his burning muscles. Footsteps were ringing in his head, and he summoned everything he had to keep that countenance of defiance as Riddle approached him at his unrushed, measured pace.

"I will _never _bow down to you."

A fiery wave of pain that ignited every nerve fibre, cutting him short. The coppery taste of blood flooded his mouth as his teeth nearly severed the tip of his tongue. He clutched at his torn stomach and slumped down to the cold floor, dragged down by the exhaustion. He felt unbearably small and feeble. His thoughts became brittle and the heaviest darkness he had ever known enveloped him, dimming the image of Tom's hesitant face looming over him.

_Ginny…  
_

_Please understand._


	2. The Prisoner Predicament

Time flies, doesn't it? One moment I'm typing up the first words of _To Define Treachery_, then four years are gone in the blink of an eye.

I've improved a lot as a writer in that time, and also became a little distant from _To Define Treachery. _It's always meaningful to me since it's my first real attempt at writing a story. I mucked up a lot of things though. Some missteps were little details like Harry having his wand when in canon Tom had taken it.

But the major problem with the former incarnation of _To Define Treachery _was that Tom and Harry became friends too fast. Theirs should be a complex and faceted relationship and I couldn't do justice to it years ago. They go from mortal enemies to collaborators and confidantes too fast. Another thing I'm displeased with is how killing Ginny was the only choice Harry could have made for himself, and I had Harry just brush her death off his conscience like it was nothing because I didn't like Ginny. That instance of character-bashing, even though it's small compared to all the manipulative!Dumbledore, and moneystealing!Weasley garbage, still made the story worse than it could have been.

So in short, I've undertaken a rewrite, with the intention of moving the plot in new directions that took a ton of work to plan out and should be exciting to watch unfold. Harry and Tom are, above all else, two wizards who have the power to shape things as they wander the winding path to whatever awaits them.

* * *

**Chapter II**: The Prisoner Predicament

* * *

Tallgrass, on all sides.

Below, the rickety structure of the Burrow - five crooked stories, four chimneys and a garage held together only by precarious threads of magic - looked as wondrous as ever. Its outer edges were blurred by a fiery brightness, the home backlit by the sun halfway sunken beneath the overlooking hills. The pond in the garden was serene; the only movement betraying the presence of dragonflies and frogs were the gentle ripples traveling through the water and the lazy circles traced by the blossoming lilypads floating on its surface.

Harry watched silently, drinking in the vision of his second home in fond remembrance. Had it only been a summer ago when Fred, George, and Ron rescued him from the Privet Drive in a flying car? When he'd met the mother who had raised the coolest older brothers that could be imagined and the most loyal friend he'd ever met, or their father with his quirky fascination for Muggle technology?

Almost as if in recognition of his thoughts, he saw a silhouette flicker beyond the window on the lowest floor and caught a glimpse of Molly as she bustled about with housework. He saw two young men stride out of the garage. The first was of medium height stride out of the garage, carrying several sets of robes that were horrifically marred by burns and singes in his muscled arms. He wondered if he was Charlie, the accomplished Quidditch Captain and prefect, for Gryffindor House, professional dragon trainer and wizard whose wand was passed down to Ron. The second was much taller and had hair that went down to his shoulders. He was saying something over his shoulder to his sibling as he pulled down the up-and-over door. Harry decided he must be Bill, the only other brother he hadn't met, the Curse-Breaker. Charlie laughed and transfigured one of the burned robes into a hog-nosed bat which swerved down to hector Bill, who good-naturedly endured it for a few steps before snatching the creature out of the sky with his bare hands and tying its wings into a knot, whereupon it reverted back to its original, charred form.

Harry was grinning widely. He decided to go down himself and introduce himself to the eldest Weasley brothers.

He made to take his first step toward the retreating brothers, but stopped short when a quiet voice spoke up.

"They don't know yet."

He whirled around, and found himself face to face with Ginny Weasley. They were both wearing their Hogwarts uniforms. She held his gaze only for a split second before a faint blush suffused her cheeks and she averted her eyes to her demeanor much like when he'd first met her, though perhaps the starstruck wonder at seeing the Boy-Who-Lived was muted. A shade of it remained, and Harry hated the feeling of his own worthlessness that welled up when he saw her lingering adoration.

What could he say to the phantom of the girl whose life he'd taken? How could he defend his decision and make her understand? He was too young to be explaining it to her and she was too young to be dead at all. He was astounded by her youth. The dusting of freckles, the way she had to crane up to look at him because he was taller by a head. She'd just begun to learn of magic. She was a _first year_. How could that journey end so abruptly?

"Hi Ginny."

She gave a small smile at his tentative greeting.

He brushed his fingertips against her forehead, and when his fingers registered the warmth of living flesh he barely suppressed the urge to recoil as if he were seared by molten lead. He kept his wrist locked as he forced himself to maintain the unbearable contact. With agonizing slowness, he traced his fingers across her temple until he reached her ear, tucking a loose tress of auburn hair behind her ear. He let his arm fall to his side.

"My brothers have always wanted to protect me," Ginny mused aloud. "For as long as I can remember.

Harry was beginning to breathe faster and faster. He shut his eyes as her words assaulted him like thrusts of a knife.

A sharp crack interrupted them. They both turned back to face the Burrow. At the end of the footpath, Arthur Weasley appeared. He moved with an almost mechanical stiffness, his movement uncertain. He was wringing his hands. Harry felt deepest loathing at himself.

"Dad will fly away on the Ford Anglia for a few nights to be alone, I think," Ginny said thoughtfully.

The side of his lips twitched as he moved his mouth soundlessly, trying to muster up the courage to say something and break the flow of the torturous words. He stayed still, wrestling with himself for another second - then he was plunging through the sheaves of tallgrass, turning his back on the image of the Burrow and the phantom of Ginny. The long thin stalks whipped at his face and body but he charged through uncaring.

"I think... mum will take this the hardest." Her saddened voice was following him, its source everywhere and forming an unbreakable sonic prison, with him as its solitary inmate.

"_SHUT UP!_" Harry shouted, tearing wildly through the field. "I _told_ you why I had to kill you! Stop it stop it stop it-"

The blades of grass became razor sharp, and in one instant he was covered in countless lacerations as they sliced through the skin of his cheek and limbs. He staggered, but he was able to sustain his forward momentum right as he reached a downward slope. He raised his arms to shield himself against the knives he was throwing himself into.

"What the bloody hell did you want me to do?" he called out shrilly, heaving with exertion. "Would you have me let him come back? Is that what you wanted?"

The winds abruptly intensified and howled like a host of demons clawing their way from hell. The tallgrass was flattened and it was terrifying to see it happen to the entire field around him and the meadows visible in the distance. He lost his footing completely and was pitched forward, tumbling end over end through brambles and thick knots that slammed into him unforgivingly before he landed flat on his back, gasping in pain.

Breaths, coming and going faintly.

"I don't know."

There was a tremulous waver in Ginny's whisper-soft voice. He noted idly that she was kneeling beside him. He gave no physical reaction to her appearance and was too wearied to note it with much more than mild resignation. He could only lay there, sprawled with his feelings and thoughts pulled feebly in too many directions.

"Why would you kill an innocent girl?"

He wheezed out the answer.

"You know why. "

"I don't understand," she insisted.

"Because..." Harry faltered.

All of it seemed like the worst impulse. Was that why? Had the synapses in his brain been firing incorrectly as they were ruptured by the basilisk venom? He uttered a strangled moan and let his head fall back, breath leaving him in a rush of air. He stared unfocusedly at the grey clouds in the sky.

"I... I made a mistake," he said to her, voice small, "The worst of my short life. I'm sorry you had to be the one to pay for it."

A small hand slipped into his and he gripped it tightly, feverishly trying to memorize the smooth silkiness of her skin, the illusory pulsation of life, and the gentle facsimile of warmth.

The youngest Weasley child looked pityingly at him, touched by his apology. Her Hogwarts robe flowed like liquid around her slight form and her vibrant hair caught the fading sunlight as the wind snatched at the ends of the fiery locks. She tightened her grip on his hand.

"Harry-" and he could feel the strains of frustration, loneliness, and heartbreak in her answer.

The winds were intensifying again and detritus flew in weaves of chaotic patterns all around them. Ginny seemed to understand that their time was growing to a close. She looked at him, lost and scared.

"I'll try to be brave."

* * *

His eyelids fluttered open.

He blinked at the blank ceiling, then sat up.

It took him a moment to comprehend the blurriness of his perception. He could see the sheets drawn up to under his arms clearly enough, but things became less distinct from there until he only saw a hazy mass of darker colors at the foot of the bed. His hands reached out on instinct to the side, and he found his glasses.

He put them on and the world came into focus.

And he wished he'd never woken up.

"Welcome back to the world of the living."

Tom Riddle was sitting in a chair, feet propped up against the edge of the bed, flicking pages of a book he was reading lazily. A nightstand was next to the bed, a wardrobe sequestered in the corner, and a bookcase that looked untouched took up the wall opposite the windows. The curtains were open, but the glass of the windowpanes was murky, like oxidized headlights of a car or a fogged up mirror. It was impossible to see what lay beyond the windows in the outside world.

"I'm not quite there myself, for which I fully place the blame on you," Riddle intoned without taking his attention from the book.

"You'll never get there," Harry said darkly. The words passed through his mouth without hesitation, without the slightest regard for self-preservation.

This time, Riddle glanced at him over the top of the book cover, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a thin line. His fingers pinched the corner of the page he was in the midst of turning.

"Did you know that I was the one who healed you? Were it not for me, you'd be a liquefied mess staining a Hogwarts uniform."

"I don't care. In fact, I hate you," Harry spat, his ire provoked by his torturer's arrogance. He struggled up so that his back was propped up against the headboard. "I hate that you manipulated Ginny, tricked me into trusting you, and then made me kill her. And I especially, _especially_ hate how you have the gall to sound as if I owe you a _favor._"

There was a heavy thump as Riddle abruptly shut the book closed and leaned forward in his chair.

"I didn't make you kill her," he said quietly, eyes boring into Harry's knowingly. "You could have accepted your fate. But, the consequences weren't acceptable to you. Somehow, your mind works in the most fascinating of ways, and you created a choice for yourself. Now Ginny is dead, you are recovering, and I am but half-alive."

He smiled charmingly.

"So, here you are."

"Here I am," Harry repeated, the statement rolling off his tongue lifelessly.

Riddle studied his face intently, but there was nothing to read in his features. Harry felt emotionless, dead. It showed. Chuckling in amusement, Riddle rose from the chair and set the book down. He yawned as he stretched his arms above his head lazily.

"Well, make yourself at home. I'll go and get us some brunch."

Whistling a wavering tune, Riddle left the bedchamber, not bothering to shut and lock the door behind him because he didn't need to or due to simple negligence. Somehow, Harry doubted it was the latter.

Harry waited until the retreating footsteps diminished into silence, then shot out of the bed and reached the doorway in a single bound.

* * *

Sensory deprivation was the cruelest torture, and Tom reveled in his newfound freedom from its clutches. A flock of birds flew overhead, tiny blots in the sky. He tried to follow the movement of their wings as they bore the creatures aloft before they faded into the distance, disappearing behind towering office buildings. He felt no ill will toward the Muggle insects teeming around him, because they were populating his world and erased the dark solitude he'd been trapped in for so long. He even permitted a pretty teenage girl to brush shoulders with him. The brunette met his eyes over the brim of her sunglasses flirtatiously, before breaking up in giggles and skipping a few steps before returning to her usual stride after she'd caught up with the friend she'd been walking with. Tom peered curiously at the other pedestrians wandering the streets. He wore a long-sleeved t-shirt with some silly Muggle brand name on it, with a pair of sunglasses were hooked on its collar. He was blending in, absorbing the feeling of being lost in a crowd.

He closed his eyes blissfully, silently savoring the warmth of the sunlight.

It stunned him how few of the memories immortalized in the diary's entries had taken place during the day. They were his most glorious moments, but they'd taken place in the night or in secluded places away from prying eyes. They'd gotten dark and depressing after reliving them endlessly, and the people he'd befriended or made his victims had become puppets, reenacting the same play over and over again. It took the joy out of weaving his deceptions to see the same students and teachers fall for his schemes a thousand times. He needed this, to set aside his disdain for Muggles for an hour and know that these people were in the present and that, whether they were harried and running errands or going shopping for leisure or simply enjoying a stroll on a nice day, they were doing so of their own accord.

But, things were not completely right.

Tom could feel the looseness in the slackened bonds that kept him from becoming physical. There was a faint feeling of floating in his steps, as if gravity was not certain whether he belonged in its domain. To be halfway free from the confinement of the ensorcelled pages was at once exhilarating and frustrating. He was so close to being himself again. Physical sensations like the breeze on his face were muted, as if diffused by a hundred layers of deadened skin.

He wanted to feel whole, not like a flesh-wraith roaming the earth because the lords of death were indecisive.

He'd invested so much in coaxing the life from Ginny Weasley and to be stopped a few steps short was frustrating in a way he'd never experienced, even when he'd been stranded for entire summers at the orphanage.

He glanced up when he noticed a sign hanging over the small, local diner he'd been looking for. The lettering on the sign was dull in the daylight, but would be shining an incandescent neon a few hours later. Followed a gentleman through the entrance, he mentally reminded himself to see the city of Birmingham by nighttime.

* * *

Harry found himself standing in a long corridor, adorned by paintings of picturesque scenes he didn't care for. They were probably portraits of famous people by famous artists, but they looked the same to him; the same waxy skin, disturbingly penetrating beady eyes, the same cravat and gloomy background. A Joseph Mallard Turner painting of a torrential flood seemed to enliven the mood a little, and there was a painting of a weeping knight kneeling aside a slain warhorse. There were only three rooms within sight; his own, the room next door, and another across from his. At each end of the corridor was a doorway leading to sets of stairs.

He started by checking the room across the hall. Opening the door, he stepped into a washroom. Linoleum tiles, plastic drapes that were dark blue with illustrations of cartoon fishes and sea flora dotting it. He checked the cabinet behind the mirror for anything useful. He found a first aid kit he deemed heavy enough for the task he had in mind for it. He hauled it back into his room and tensed up his sore arm muscles before hurling it at the occluded windows with all the force he could muster.

He held his breath as it soared through the air and smashed into the strangely-altered windows, but not through them. The kit merely bounced back off and landed on the floor, the clasps falling open and the bottles of pills, packages of bandages and gauze, skin stapler, and miniature dental module clattering about.

A disappointing, if not unexpected result. Riddle must have made everything unbreakable.

He fled back into the hallway.

He tried the room adjacent to his, but when he tried to turn the doorknob he met the resistance of a lock and he was too tired to hurl his body against the door to see if it would break down. He quashed the momentary feeling of longing for his wand. An Alohomora would go a long way in his predicament.

He rushed down the stairs closest to him, bare feet slapping against the cold, polished wood in rapid succession before he arrived on the floor below. There were another three rooms, two with their doors ajar, and another staircase at the opposite end of the hall. At this point, he didn't at all care about the particulars of the house - he only wanted to find the front door or back door or whatever, and get the hell on his way.

He caught a glimpse of the rumpled blankets and realized he'd just gone in a circle.

Cursing under his breath, he took off down the opposite staircase. Just as he expected, he wound up in the same hallway.

Feeling an impending sense of doom, he generally ran himself ragged trying to escape the loop enclosing him.

Finally, he staggered against the wall, sinking down underneath the painting of the sad knight.

He screamed at the top of his lungs in frustration, and instinctively curled up, drawing up his knees and clasping his hands around them as echoes of his anguish rang with an unexpected harshness in his ears.

He began pondering things.

Certain questions, like why Riddle had decided to heal him before the basilisk's venom had consumed him. Hypotheticals like how the Weasley family would take the death of its youngest. Would they be shown her corpse, gutted and emptied of blood so that it was a dried-out husk?

Certain worries, like whether Dumbledore had surmised what had happened - and whether he had even been reinstated as headmaster at all. He assumed that Riddle had taken all evidence of his connection to the Chamber of Secrets.

And a certain regret that would stay with him forever.

He'd killed Ginny in a moment of sheer belief, absolute certainty that it was the only way to keep Riddle from coming back.

_And now what, _he thought miserably, _she's dead, I'm a prisoner, and _he's_ somewhere outside, a free man._

He stayed there, huddled against the hall. Detached from time, from his own guilt.

The sound of footsteps eventually emanated from the stairwell.

Harry turned his head to look at it. Feeling his wounds burn against his bandages, he forcefully dragged himself onto his feet, gritting his teeth. He hobbled back into the bedroom, kicked the chair Riddle had sat in out of sheer spite, and slid gingerly under the covers.

Before long, Riddle was back. He glanced at the medical kit and its scattered contents but made no mention of it. He righted the fallen chair and seated himself, removing the meals he'd ordered from the diner from his bag. He drew a wand - Harry's wand - from his pocket and gave it a nonchalant flick, simultaneously conjuring a tray complete with utensils in Harry's lap and levitating the roast beef sandwich and a container of tomato soup onto it.

He sat down, watching Harry expectantly. He'd changed from his wizarding attire into Muggle clothing for his trip, the first time Harry had seen him wear anything other than his prefect uniform.

He picked up the spoon and fork, holding them idly.

Minutes lapsed in silence, and eventually Harry conveyed the message that he wasn't hungry and that Riddle would have to initiate any dialogue. The tall Slytherin boy was toying with Harry's wand, weighing it in his hands, examining the fine grain patterns, trying to get a feel for the invisible bond between the wand and the wizard it had chosen.

"Your wand feels exactly like my own," Riddle thought out loud.

Harry stayed sullenly quiet and kept his gaze downcast, as if disappointed to find himself alive.

Then, he muttered, "It's holly and phoenix feather."

Riddle considered Harry's answer, weighing it against his expectations and absorbing the implications it entailed.

"Truly we are two of a kind, Harry."

He put the wand down and leaned forward, captivating Harry's attention by the sheer intensity of his stare.

"Our histories could not be more similar. You resemble me in physical ways, some obvious and some subtle. We wield brother wands. And now, both of us have_ killed_."

"I killed Ginny to stop you," Harry said slowly, looking up, "You murder because that's what... that's what evil people do! I don't know what it is, exactly, but I know that it will always separate us."

"I murdered someone, as you so delicately put it, because I wanted to create a living memoir of myself, not out of any sense of enjoyment or satisfaction. Murder was just the means by which accomplished my goal," Riddle reasoned, spreading his hands in front of him defensively.

Harry seethed.

"To what degree do you think society differentiates killers? Neither of us are soldiers, fighting for the glory of the Isles and thereby exempt from the laws normal citizens abide by In the end, I killed Myrtle painlessly by way of the Basilisk's stare and you absolutely _butchered _darling little Weasley. You killed her in a more painful and bloodier way when Ginny would have died peacefully had you left her to me. It would have been like falling into a pleasant, ever-lasting sleep. Do you know what kind of a mind, what kind of soul it takes to be able to consciously make the decision to take another life and in such a brutal manner?"

Harry remained silent.

Riddle smirked as he rose, smoothing over his shirt as he prepared to depart and leave the boy to his own devices.

"Do eat. You need to regain your strength."

_Harry Potter, holder of the brother wand and murderer at a younger age than I, _he thought to himself. He paused to give a backward glance over his shoulder. He felt a strange joy watching the motionless raven-haired boy hold his silver utensils in his small, balled fists, the side of his mouth hollowed tensely, and Avada-Kedavra-green eyes staring hard at nothing.

* * *

One day, the door to the room next to his was unlocked.

He'd all but given up on exploring his prison. Nothing seemed to change, there were no irregularities or shifts in pattern that would indicate an opening for him. The staircases linked to the same hallway and the windows remained paintings always seemed to be mocking him, these Victorian-era aristocrats with soulless eyes, and he tired of it.

But he'd had a spark of inspiration while eating breakfast, and he made the decision to keep a certain piece of silverware on his person. The butter-knife wasn't sharp enough to threaten Riddle, but he'd been searching for a suitable whetstone to sharpen it into a potential weapon. He'd wandered out of his room, but throughout his search the unassuming door of the sealed room kept turning up in his peripheral vision.

On impulse, he put his search on hold and grasped the doorknob, bracing himself for the feeling of the latch bolt jamming as he turned it. He blinked as the resistance of the locking mechanism failed to manifest.

Disbelieving but feeling the faintest glimmer of hope, Harry pushed the door open. Pale light flooded into the room, and he saw that it was a study, dominated by an armoire desk with its folding doors opened wide to reveal the slide-out writing surface. He glanced around, and seated himself in front of the desk.

He flicked the switch of the lamp to give himself some light and examined the notepads and other articles of clutter, hoping to find some inkling of Riddle's plans. Something to bring an end to his ignorance and help him chart a course of action to breakout and find his way back to his friends and Dumbledore.

He found some documentation written in looping, cursive script that was difficult to interpret, like his teacher's handwriting in his first year at school with Dudley. It took him a while to realize that they weren't written by Riddle, but by whoever had lived here previously before Riddle had taken it over. Had Riddle killed the previous occupants too? They were medical care and citizenship papers, half-filled out fax return forms.

He swept his arms across the entirety of the desk, sweeping away all of the meaningless clutter onto the floor. He sat there, breathing hard for a long moment. Half-heartedly, he opened the drawers of the desk and peered into them, sorting through equally useless things like pens and envelopes and unused stationery.

It was hard to stifle the rising sense of hollow disappointment. With the possibilities narrowed to the sealed room, he'd built it up in his head as the keeper to the solutions of his problems. Find a way in, and he had the tools and knowledge to enact a miraculous mistake.

Reality was unkind.

There was a sharp sound of knuckles rapping against the wood of the door Harry had forgotten to close. Gritting his teeth, he looked up, leveling a hateful glare at the figure standing in the doorway.

"I thought you'd notice the door wasn't locked."

"What do you want me from me?" Harry asked, figuring he might as well ask the essential question.

Riddle reached within the folds of his robe and delicately extracted an object. An object with a black cover and binding, so innocent at first sight.

"I just want you to write."

Harry shot to his feet, horror writ on his features.

"I won't," he hissed, staring at the diary in Riddle's hands.

"No?"

The boy's gaze snapped to meet Riddle's challengingly.

"I have to put a piece of myself into the pages, invest real feeling and thoughts in it, otherwise it's meaningless scribbling. That's why it worked with Ginny! You can't manufacture authentic feeling."

Harry jumped, startled by the loud thump of the diary hitting the face of the desk.

"You owe me a _life debt_."

Riddle towered over him, and an aura of authority seemed to blaze to life around him and impose his will in the very air molecules, imbuing them with an electric intensity that made Harry's hair stand on end. It cowed Harry despite his incomprehension of what precisely a life debt was. He only knew that Riddle held some power he didn't comprehend yet over him and that he could use it to compel Harry to do what he wished.

"I made the choice to spare your life. In the wizarding world, that gives the debt-holder immense power. I could force the matter had I the inclination, but I don't need to. You can either obey me, or I will find someone more willing. Someone..." Riddle's tongue darted out to moisten his lips in thought, "someone like Ginevra. Insecure, waiting for a friend to enter their lives and lend a sympathetic ear to her woes..."

Devastated, Harry sank into the chair. Without another word, Riddle turned on his heel and left, and it enraged Harry that Riddle dared show his retreating back so fearlessly.

Harry buried his face into his folded arms as he listened to the door shut and the clicking sound of the lock.

"You think you're so invincible?" he whispered.

He drew the knife from its hiding spot in the waistband, trying to stave off the mounting desperation.

He stabbed it into the diary, but the blade bent sideways when it made contact. Harry could only stare in disbelief between the unblemished yellowed paper and the deformed metal of the knife.

He flung the knife away, blind with rage, and tried tearing the pages with his bare hands, but they resisted like they were sheets of titanium.

He buried his face into the palms of his hands, suddenly feeling unbearable exhaustion setting into his bones.

_Why is this all happening?_

He wanted to be back at Hogwarts, wishing for Potions class to be over. He longed to be facing the troll in the girl's bathroom with Ron again, or standing on the chessboard of life-scale pieces and being a knight's move away from being cut into ribbons. He even wished he were at the Dursleys, subjected to their hatred and condescension, because nothing was worse than this imprisonment at the hands of his hated enemy.

For a long while, his breathing was the only audible sound to accompany his thoughts. His eyes wandered down to his reflection staring up at him from the blade of the warped knife, the features hazy and dull in the wan light.

Unbidden, the last words of his imagining of Ginny Weasley rose to the forefront of his mind. He wished he knew whether he'd seen some shade of the real Ginny in his dream, or whether it was some phantasm that risen up in his basilisk venom-weakened mind, but her last farewell replayed itself over and over in his mind.

_I'll try to be brave._

He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple, silently praying for strength.

He reopened them, steeling himself. _  
_

His hand reached out and picked up the fountain pen and - slowly - he began to write.

Each word engraved itself into his soul forever even as the ink faded into the pages.

_My name is Harry James Potter, and one day I will be the death of you._

* * *

I'd always meant to have a kind of clever subtle manipulation of Rowling's moral at the end of Book Two. When Harry's facing Tom and the basilisk alone, it's his faith in Dumbledore that calls Fawkes to him, bringing with him the Sorting Hat and the Sword of Gryffindor. I meant for Tom to target and undermine Harry's faith in Dumbledore, which leads to Harry's downfall and becoming truly helpless and desperate. That's more subtle and intelligent and _Slytherin _than just smirking or being in a slash pairing, which is what being Slytherin means most of the time in the fandom.

I think this will shape up to be a much superior story than the original, one that will live up to the potential of the idea. Most importantly, I can relate and get into the heads of Tom and Harry, something I found I couldn't do the first time around.

If any of you would like a personal copy of the original incarnation of the story, I don't mind sending it, just leave me the email address you want me to send the attachment by. I've got the private messaging option enabled.

There are 546 of you who have _**To Define Treachery **_in your favorites lists and 857 who have it in your alert lists. I know a lot of you guys can't review because you reviewed already and FFnet doesn't allow multiple reviews, but I hope you guys are there and still interested in this.

See you guys soon.


	3. A Time for Old Friends

Hey guys, I finally got the much-needed breakthrough and completed chapter three. There were some substantial scenes that I wanted in this chapter rather than the next one. Always hard to rewrite something because it means starting from the ground up, but the effort is going into something worthwhile.

I'm very happy with the reception for the new incarnation of this story, thank you all so much for your support. Here's the next 5,000 words of _To Define Treachery._

* * *

**Chapter III**: A Time for Old Friends

* * *

_The death of me? You believe yourself capable of such a deed? _the diary questioned.

_I already proved it, in case you've forgotten._

_Ah, you refer to the All Hallow's Eve when I was banished from the corporeal realm... But that was not death, young Harry. And no one shall come as close as you did ever again... I will live forever. _

* * *

_People are always in such a rush_, Albus Dumbledore thought, deep in his midday ruminations.

Men stayed in the world so fleetingly, their passage through womb to tomb gone in the blink of an eye. Albus preferred to take his time.

He watched the statues of great wizards and witches that populated the arboretum. Rows and rows of them - all famed statesmen, leaders who had subdued dark creatures preying on humanity, theoreticians and pioneers of magical arts that they taught their pupils, who would in turn teach their own students until their knowledge spread to all corners of the word.

They were each a testament to the truth that all paid their dues to Father Time before they were confronted with Death, and gone meekly into the after.

He knew a handful of these bygone figures intimately, had known what their faces looked like when smiling or grimacing, remembered the little idiosyncrasies and foibles they revealed when they were distracted, and dearly missed the fire in their eyes when they would discourse over their academic findings. It seemed that there were fewer and fewer kindred spirits in the world as the days went by.

Many more had lived in far earlier epochs of wizardkind, far before his time, like Andros the Invincible who alone could conjure a Patronus the size of a giant, or the diviner Mopsus, whose every prophecy was lucid and came true, or Falco Aesalon, who unlocked the secret of the Animagus when he took the form of a falcon. He would meet the statues' imperious gazes, peer into those unseeing onyx eyes and wonder what they had been like in life.

Breathing in deep, he luxuriated in the enervating scent of hawthorn. He found this sanctuary the most perfect place in all the world for deep noon-day thought and dwellings of an aging and brilliant mind. He absentmindedly swished his hand through the gentle currents of the fountain he was sitting beside. Water sylphs wrestled and playfully darted through his fingertips, their shimmering forms lending the cool waters an otherworldly glow.

But it was time to leave his sanctuary.

The aura of serenity was lost, swept away by winds of another tragedy - the death of Ginevra Weasley coinciding with the disappearance of Harry Potter. He glanced around at the groves of elder, and their drooping boughs seemed defeated. The encroaching groundmist seeping through their roots seemed a shade sinister, hiding creeping things he could not abide.

A brilliant flash of fire signalled Fawkes' arrival, the phoenix settling down on the shoulder of Dorcas Wellbeloved's statue. Fawkes cocked its head sideways, looking at him inquisitively.

Albus greeted his friend's arrival with an almost unnoticeable gesture that sent a jet of water at the bird. Fawkes squawked and instantly shot away from his perch, flying over to the statue of Grendelin the Woeful, further away from his horrible master.

"Just keeping you on your toes," he informed the indignant phoenix with the utmost seriousness. He betrayed not a hint that it was a gesture of good humor as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Well," he said, rising and extending his arm for Fawkes to take hold, "let us be off."

Fawkes waited for a moment, then huffed and reluctantly flew over to him and settled on his arm. He nipped his ear halfheartedly to convey his annoyance.

Albus bade farwell to history's giants and allowed himself to be whisked away.

_To Hogwarts I return._

* * *

The knife stayed with him.

He had kept it, and slowly managed to straighten the blade out. The humble butter-knife seemed woefully inadequate to the task of threatening someone who would become the most feared Dark wizard of his time, and he found himself wishing for a better alternative.

Tom slept somewhere else, so he couldn't try stabbing him to death when he wasn't awake. He contemplated trying to lunge and get him through something soft and vulnerable, like the eyes, but the thought horrified him and he was afraid of messing up. Surely Tom wouldn't allow a second opportunity if he missed.

There was a clock in the landing connecting this storey to the one below it, in the middle of the stairway. He hadn't taken notice of it before. It was a dignified-looking longcase clock. He pictured the pendulum inside, swinging back and forth endlessly. It was purposeless in the worst way, for time had no meaning for him, under these circumstances.

He was feeling weaker than in past days. He had lost his energy from writing in the diary and losing pieces of himself to its sorcerous properties. The pall of Ginny stood tall in his mind, and he felt sickened to know that he was edging closer to her fate. Tom had taken so much from Ginny that he needed little from Harry, but it made him feel violated, subjected to something deeply, fundamentally wrong. It was a nauseating fear that ate away at him like a cancer, haunting his dreams. What did it feel like to wake up as another person?

He idly carved designs into the wall with the knife, scraping off peels of paint. The memory of drawing crude pictures in the dirt with sticks at Summerlake park in Surrey had lost none of its clarity. There had been a good stretch of time when he was six or seven, when Dudley was too young to really bully him too ferociously, that he'd been bold enough to play at the park. He had even played with some of the other children his age, and the parents hadn't been poisoned against him by the Dursleys. Then Dudley had grown, and that time passed, and the other children would whisper bad things about him instead of playing with him.

"Found a way to entertain yourself?" Tom asked. He was leaning against the section of the wall separating the two halves of the flight of stairs. The stairs from the floor Harry was trapped on ran down in one direction, while the stairs from the lower floor ran up toward the landing in the other direction. He craned his neck around the corner to where Harry was standing, and peered at the illustrations of eight-legged creatures marring the wall.

"I never liked those things either," he remarked.

The acromantulae were still a vivid, nightmarish image in Harry's mind.

"I've always wanted to deface walls, for some reason," Harry said, saying the words without thinking.

"A good way to entertain oneself, I suppose."

Harry looked down, suddenly wearied of the exchange. "It gives me something to do."

Tom made an mmhmm noise of agreement. "Now that I've found you, I think it's high time we had a little heart-to-heart."

"What?"

"A chat, Harry," Tom said encouragingly. "Surely you must have some questions you'd like to ask me."

Harry made no motion to move over, so Tom plopped himself down on second-to-last step of the stairwell's upper flight. They sat in silence, watching the clock on the wall. A dim half-light shined from the corridor and framed Tom's figure, casting his shadow hazily on the wall. Harry considered standing up and walking down the rest of the stairs. He'd wind up at the opposite end of the hallway and march straight to his room and sulk there for the rest of the day.

Precisely a minute had passed before Harry finally caved in to his curiosity.

"Okay, fine. What're your plans?" he questioned. "Why did you take me away from Hogwarts?"

"Well, Harry, I don't have the foggiest idea," Tom said cheerfully. "But that's a good question. My turn."

That set him off. He gave a strangled, despairing yell and smashed his fist against the wall separating them viciously enough to numb his entire hand. He seized the banister and pulled himself up, fully intending to storm down the rest of the stairs and ignore the bastard.

"Wait," Tom stated. He made no effort to move from his seat.

Harry's foot lingered in midair as he struggled to get himself under control.

"Why would you invite me to ask a question, and then not even answer it? Go to hell," he snapped. "It's not enough, what you've done to me, isn't it? You have to make every little thing torturous!"

"I was telling you the truth," Tom's voice came evenly. "Although I admit was toying with you. If you stay, I will give you the serious answer you deserve."

It was as much civility as he'd ever had the grace to show him.

Against his better judgment, he stayed.

"Okay. Whatever," he said, a caustic and bitter sarcasm slipping into his tone. "What does it matter, I'm just wasting my time here one way or the other, right?"

"Let me ask you something. What would you be doing, if I hadn't dragged you out of Hogwarts, away from your life?"

Harry briefly considered this.

"I'd be at home," he said, pointing out the obvious.

"What would you be doing there?"

"Just... things," Harry said, wavering slightly.

Undeterred by the boy's lack of reaction, Tom continued.

"Would you be doing anything to better yourself?"

"...No."

He would be doing chores, through no fault of his own.

He would be wandering around the neighborhood, or taking a stroll at the park if the weather was nice.

He would be exchanging letters with Hermione and Ron.

He would eagerly look forward to the end of summer and daydream about the adventures he would have next year.

But he wouldn't lie to himself by saying he'd be studying magic for its own sake.

"I start to think about it a little more," Tom said, his tone contemplative and tinged with a shade of melancholy, "and it seems to me that our similarities are superficial. Initially, I thought; 'Our faces are not dissimilar. We wield brother wands. We lived without knowledge of magic for eleven years.' The Weasley gurk told me about the Muggles that treat you so poorly, and who you live with in the summer. I see the fingerprints of fate about us, faint like a layer of dust, giving us no insight into why they're there. That's a thing of mine," he admitted, "I see these connections and I see meaning in them. They're irresistible to me, so I make blind decisions such as sparing you. But reason does catch up to me sooner or later."

His shadow shifted on the wall and Harry stiffened warily, the heel of his foot moving instinctively to the stair-step below.

"When I was your age, I read voraciously, plied my teachers for scraps of spellwork that lay ahead in the curriculum, beseeched the permission of the librarians to bring texts home over the summers. To me, magic was still miraculous, still perfect in my mind."

"I've seen it in many of my peers," Tom went on, "It was as if magic had lost its novelty for these immature little fools, like the gloss or paint chipped from a toy." He shook his head, and his lip curled into a sneer. "They treat it as _schoolwork_, as muggles do, the means to get marks. An Acceptable, Poor, Troll, Excellent, Outstanding. And all I thought of them was - **_pathetic_**."

Harry fumed, stunned at his own speechlessness and feeling an overwhelming surge of hatred. Every time he thought he was spent emotionally, another wave would crash and resuscitate that seething loathing. The monster had made a murderer out of him and refused to stop there. He had wormed his way into his mind, finding his flaws, and made him feel _guilt_.

All the feelings of the happiest day of his life came rushing back. The sheer _power_ of those memories made him shiver and his lip disbelief, yet a timid hope that the Hogwarts letter wasn't a hoax. The sleepless night at seaside, the silent, lonely countdown to his eleventh birthday and his life changing forever. The sheer joy of making his first friend.

Of learning that _magic_ existed.

He stood there, devastated.

"Now you may ask me your first question again," Tom said primly.

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. He wanted nothing more than to erase every trace of the boy on the other side of the wall from the face of the earth.

"What are you doing here, in this place?" he asked hoarsely, "Why are you keeping me prisoner?"

"I was telling you the truth. I truly don't know. My instinct told me to take you, and I listened to it for it has so rarely led me astray. As for what I'm doing here, I'm waiting for someone."

"You're _waiting_," Harry repeated, the skepticism clear in his voice.

"And he knows it," Tom added, "He's definitely known I've been here for the past three days, if not longer."

"Maybe he isn't coming."

"He'll come here eventually. First of all, this is his summer home. And secondly, his curiosity gets the better of him, every single time," Tom said with a mischievous grin.

He hauled himself up.

"Well, good talking to you, as always."

Tom clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, descending down the stairs and disappearing from sight. The gentle footfalls diminished, leaving Harry alone with the spiders carved into the wall.

His mood reflective, Harry followed Tom down the stairs, and wound up standing at the far end of the same hall as always. The older boy was nowhere in sight, in some part of the house he couldn't reach.

He made his way to his room, mind quite blank. He passed the study, and stopped. Tom had never bothered to reseal it. He wasn't sure what compelled him to enter it again, but he didn't care and walked in.

The armoire desk and the contents scattered about its surface were unchanged; everything remained in the same place they'd been the last time he'd been in the room. There was a bookshelf in the cabinet space above the desk surface that he hadn't noticed before. It was one of the details that escape an observer under duress.

The bookshelf was stocked with texts, some of them quite thick. He leaned in close to get a good look and began to examine them. Most of them were pure drudgery by his standard - the history of Wimbledon, autobiographies of people he didn't know, a few novels with dull-sounding names - but one of them struck his fancy. It had been well-read by its owner, as evidenced by the tarnished edges of its pages, and its title read _Devious Charmwork and Their Devilish Applications, Volume_ _II_.

Harry stared at it hard, then reached up and removed it from the shelf. He'd assumed that whoever lived here was a Muggle, but this suggested otherwise. He opened it and skimmed through it lightly, taking in the incantations and living illustrations and the explanations.

He couldn't stop a smile from gracing his face, dark though his mood was.

Tom's words hurt to the extent Harry was surprised they hadn't drawn blood. But they had made him remember the majesty of magic, the thrill of his first _Wingardium Leviosa._

He wouldn't forget, he swore to himself.

* * *

The curtain of phoenix fire parted itself, and Dumbledore found himself gazing at the towering gates of Hogwarts. They swung open of their own accord, the castle recognizing his presence and welcoming him back home loyally.

He arrived without fanfare, but so well-loved was he that it didn't take long for the student populace to catch onto his return as he made his way through the front courtyard. Students between classes called out to him, and he returned their smiles. Students waved from the overlooks and balconies and the higher landings, and one of them welcomed him with a beautiful conjuration of doves. An entire flock of them made of light of purest silver, a wonderful piece of sixth-year charmwork. He clapped in appreciation as the magical birds joined a flock of flesh-and-blood birds, accompanying them towards the treetops of the Forbidden Forest.

He did not want to attract too much attention however, and after greeting a group of Ravenclaws let Fawkes bring him to the hallway outside of his office in another flash of fire.

The gargoyle had just finished sliding back into place, and Dumbledore found himself facing a tall wizard dressed in extravagant green dress robes. He was Euan Bennett, and Dumbledore found that he simply did not have the time to deal with him.

"Albus?" he asked incredulously. "The board has not yet approved your return."

Dumbledore gave him a steady, intent look over his half-moon spectacles. Euan shifted in discomfort, unable to hold his gaze.

"I am well aware of this fact," Dumbledore said at last, simply and without further explanation. "Anything else?"

He stepped aside to let Euan past, smiling as he heard the choice words muttered the governor's breath.

He stated the password to the gargoyle and ascended the stairwell to the Headmaster's Tower. The office was filled with the delightful whirring sounds of his collection of instruments, and the astronomy models spun as they always did. Professor McGonagall was waiting for him.

"Minerva," he greeted warmly as they hugged each other, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

She stepped back from him formally, and couldn't hide a small but, alas, restrained and subdued smile. Her face was always one meant to be happy rather than severe, Dumbledore thought privately. Given the circumstances, he could understand her seriousness.

"Welcome back, Albus. I trust that Euan didn't give you any trouble?"

"None at all, my dear."

"Good. The Ministry representatives are to arrive within the hour to begin their investigations in the Chamber. Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger will be along to see you shortly, as you instructed."

"Thank you. They have every right to know what has transpired."

But no one knew what had happened in the Chamber of Secrets yet. He could only tell them that Ginny was dead and Harry's fate was unknown. He felt a heavy weight settle on his heart, and a flicker of something akin to apprehension. It was far from the first time he had been the bearer of tragic news.

It was a responsibility he had accepted time and time again, but never before for victims so young.

* * *

As it turned out, studying magic was difficult without being able to put his newfound knowledge into practice. It tempered his renewed determination in a hurry, but he didn't let the lack of a wand deflate him. He practiced the motions diligently. He worked on the suppleness of his wrist, something that he would have paid less attention to _with _a wand. He visualized their effects in his mind, imagined how he'd employ them to accomplish astonishing things. He memorized the incantations, and tried his best not to be bothered by the possibility that he might never get the chance to cast the spells.

But nothing could be more frustrating than _not having his wand_.

Harry felt this frustration acutely when he heard the unprecedented sound of knocking on the door.

The _front _door.

It was a muffled sound, as if coming from underwater.

He stood still, hardly daring to breathe.

Then, an equally muffled click and creaking of hinges.

Someone from below cleared his throat and muttered an incantation.

"_Finite_ _incantatem."_

A counter-spell that neutralized the effects of spells acting on environments, Harry recalled instantly from the very first chapter of _Devious Charmwork._ He made the mental leaps and in the corner of his eye, he saw the misting and obfuscation of the window-panes disappear, for the first time exposing the view of evergreen treetops in the distance, swaying in the evening wind.

The sound of footsteps were clearer now, and Harry knew he had no time at all to waste due to indecision if he wanted to regain his freedom. He was all too aware of his vulnerable state. He was without his wand, so he couldn't defend himself. He had no idea if Tom was here or not, but he had to take his chances.

Gathering his courage, he rushed to the staircase, moving his feet as quietly as he could. He stole past the landing and last set of stairs to arrive at the lower floor. He blinked, staring at unfamiliar surroundings. The stairs, instead of routing him back to the damnable hallway that had trapped him, deposited him onto a landing that split to the left and right. The one to the left led to what he was fairly certain was an entry hall, but backed away at the split-second glimpse of a silhouette striding from the open doorway. Anxiety began, but he tried to keep his head clear. He didn't know enough about the person Riddle was waiting for, whether he was an enemy or friend. The wily Slytherin hadn't let a single hint slip as to their relationship. Harry had nothing he could use.

Escape was tantalizingly close, but he checked himself and moved in the other direction, through a laundry room and into a kitchenette. He searched frantically for a back door, but he spotted it too late, and making a move for it would put him into the line of sight of the armed-with-a-wand arrival. Over the counter, he could see a modest-sized living room with unlit lamps and sofas and a television set.

Tom was lounging on one of those couches, cross-legged with a notebook in his lap. He noticed Harry. He regarded him with a disapproving gaze and Harry stood there, heart sinking, and they were both motionless.

Soon, the stranger came into view, and Harry saw that he was an older gentleman, perhaps an inch taller than Tom. Light moisture clung to his gray coat and perfectly-trimmed moustache. He reminded Harry of a portrait he'd seen of Mark Twain on the back of a Huckleberry Finn novel. A tad younger and less white-haired, but otherwise the resemblance held.

The gentleman looked between Harry and Tom askance, and they all stared at each other, speechless and unsure of what to do. Harry thought of a dozen things he could say and none of them seemed appropriate, so ultimately said nothing.

He didn't know what to expect. Whether Tom would start a dialogue or decide to let curses fly. He hoped the other person was skilled at dueling if Tom opted for the latter option.

"Well," the gentleman began, "No precautions, hardly any defenses of any sort? I admit that I am disappointed in you, Tom."

"Why would I bother with such things?" Tom said charmingly, easing into the conversation without missing a beat, "I trust you, after all."

"That's the impression you want to convey, certainly."

"I ... won't deny it," Tom allowed, "That and the fact that you would foresee any tricks I tried to pull."

"My gift doesn't work quite that conveniently. You know this."

Realization dawned on Harry.

The man was a seer.

"Ah, see the boy's expression?" the man said to Tom, sounding pleased. " He catches on quick, he does. Though your word choice of 'foresee' is something I would term a 'dead giveaway'."

Tom gave a small shrug, an easy smile playing on his lips.

"I hesitate to call him bright, but he's shown the occasional sign of brilliance."

The gentleman gave a strikingly fake smile and strode into the living room, seating himself in an armchair facing Tom.

"I'll do you a favor and broach the reason we're here," he said, his demeanor suddenly all business. "I don't see everything - far from it - so it boggles my mind that I'm talking to you again, looking like your younger self. And with none other than Harry Potter, plucked away from the vaunted safety of Hogwarts."

Tom gestured for him to continue, listening intently.

"I am going to guess, from the stir about the Chamber of Secrets and Harry's presence, that it was you that unleashed Slytherin's monster and caused all of that chaos for the mudbloods of the school."

"That would be correct, yes."

"So I assume that you still swear by your old beliefs."

Tom regarded him, a hint of coolness now in his expression and the warmth fading from his tone.

"Am I to assume that you do not?"

"I'm through with that philosophy, Tom," he said, shaking his head. "To be honest, I never wanted anything to do with it, even when we were peers. That's why I never took your mark."

Tom looked down at his feet silently. Harry felt nervous, wondering whether a life was going to end.

Tom rose deliberately, but the gentle man held his gaze steadily, showing no signs of being intimidated.

"You know that I came to you first," he ground out, almost as if struggling to understand. "Not Malfoy. Not Rosier. Not Rothley. Of all of them, I came to _you."_

_"_And I am disappointing you, to my regret. Such is life."

"Life?" Tom said disbelievingly. "I see the tax return forms on the desk in your study. I see the health care, passports, membership documents to a golfing club in Wellington. Correspondence to a dull family in Essex, congratulating them on their purchase of an exotic sports car. I would've assumed the inhabitant of this house to be a Muggle were it not for our history together. When did life take such a turn?"

The sides of his mouth were drawn into a thin line.

"How long has it been since you've left the wizarding world?"

Tom's expression was morphed by a trace of sadness and an old pain, and the sight of his face seemed unforgettable to Harry.

"Many years ago," the gentleman said solemnly, "Even before you began your foolhardy revolution. And don't hate me for saying it, but you could do something similar. Disappear into the Muggle world. Or don a new identity in the wizarding one, and forget the old delusions."

"Seer's blood runs through your veins, but you are a coward," Tom hissed.

"I don't care what you call me," he said, upturning his nose.

He should have gotten a Killing Curse to the face right then, but instead, something in that flippant, uncaring answer deflated Tom and sapped his desire to prolong the conversation. A silent understand passed between them, and when Tom spoke again, a strange sadness overtook his voice.

"Well then," he said simply, "I can recognize a lost cause when I'm faced with one. I apologize for intruding on your hospitality. I'll take the boy and move on."

The gentleman held up a hand imperiously, staying Tom.

"While it saddens me that my half-hearted effort to dissuade you from your ideology failed - for surely it will lead to much suffering - I am glad that I decided to pay you the courtesy of a visit in person and tell you my decision not to support you face-to-face. It is good seeing you again, Tom," he said sincerely.

He climbed to his feet, nodded to Harry, then turned his back on them on his way out. He paused when he reached the edge of the entryway.

"Albus Dumbledore learns of your existence midway through summer, despite all your efforts to keep your secrets," he said apologetically, "In the meantime, I should like to have my perfectly Muggle summer home back."

He strode away from them, and the sound of his boots on the floor ceased as the door closed shut.

Harry blinked, bewildered. Tom merely stood there, eyes fixed on the empty space where the seer had sat not long before.

"Is that it?" he finally asked, mystified. "You're not going to go after him?"

"He knows I'm not part of his future," Tom answered, his lips pursed in a way that made him seem dangerous and... _mournful_ at the same time. "He's already seen it."


	4. State of Mind

I'm sorry for the horrific wait. That was a hell of a chokepoint to get through.

On the other hand, I did deliver the longest chapter thus far, clocking in at 10,500 words, and I have a lot of content for the next two chapters already written.

Forgiveness plox?

* * *

**Chapter IV**: State of Mind

* * *

_What do you expect me to write in here? I already know what you are..._

A pause.

_Whatever you want. I'm here to listen._

* * *

Tom took the abrupt eviction in stride, wordlessly stalking upstairs to gather his things. Harry remained where he was, watching as the silent form of the older boy disappeared from view. He had nothing but his spectacles, the clothes on his back, and a choice.

He looked to the base of the staircase, then to the doorway where the old seer had so recently stood. Then back to the stairs again.

Stay.

Run.

Frowning, he listened carefully to the sounds of rummaging through the drawers of the study upstairs.

By intuition he knew he didn't have long to come to a decision. Tom surely had a contingency in place to stop him in his tracks if he made a break for it. Maybe the door was somehow automatically enchanted to stay shut from the inside still. Maybe there was some kind of boundary spell that would trigger the moment he set foot outside.

And he was still without his wand. So was Tom, but he seemed to be in control of his magic nonetheless despite this.

There were so many things that could go wrong, very fast.

But remaining here was fraught with its own perils as well.

Tom had claimed he had spared Harry and whisked him off into hiding on a whim. He wasn't inclined to believe the words of a snake, and so had no idea as to what true purpose Tom had in mind for him. He had to assume that he was still slated for death.

Tom had seemed as close as Harry had ever witnessed to being distraught, and that presented him with a narrow window of opportunity.

He _had_ to take it, and hope that the doorknob wasn't locked by magical means. The only thing on his side was that Tom would hopefully assume that Harry lacked the sheer balls required to escape out from right under his nose.

He bit his lower lip and tried to clear his head of distractions.

In theory, he knew what he was supposed to do. It was so simple. The daring Boy-Who-Lived. The one student who found the Philosopher's Stone, braving the defenses of Hogwart's professors, and vanquishing the man with two faces. The one who descended into the Chamber of Secrets, knowing that he'd find a basilisk waiting for him.

All he had to do was move one foot in front of the other until he reached the door and run for it. But he found he was rooted to the spot.

He had hardly been conscious of it till now, but being made a prisoner for weeks did things to one's state of mind.

Being locked up in one place. Running in loops through the same halls and flight of stairs that had been linked to each other. A cruel little labyrinth with no one out and living at the mercy of a killer. Indecision wracked him as he stood there in the entrance hallway... he became aware of an unfamiliar sensation in his wand hand.

Swallowing, he looked down to see it trembling.

_This is not me, _Harry thought, staring at it aghast.

An externalization of cowardice. The hand of a fearful child awaiting punishment from his betters.

What would his friends say?

What would McGonagall and Dumbledore think?

How would his housemates react if they bore witness to this sad specimen?

"What's the matter with you," Harry murmured to himself.

_This is unworthy of a wizard of your House. You are still a Gryffindor._

He swore it was his imagination, but he thought he could hear a faint_ "Are you?"_ in _another voice _taunt him.

He closed his hand into a fist, and the trembling ceased.

He flexed his fingers, inwardly willing the banishment of the cold that had set into his hands, and squared his shoulders.

An intake of breath, and he strode to the door and opened it.

No shock as he touched the doorknob.

No alarm as he tentatively walked onto the doorstep.

Nothing at all to indicate that he had broadcast his actions to the floor above.

He had to raise an arm to shade his eyes as he stepped into the falling daylight. The sound of car engines, the wind rustling through the trees and carrying the conversations of pedestrians. It took his vision a few seconds to adjust. It was like living in a black and white film, then being thrust into the real world. He judged the time to be late midday.

He retained enough presence of mind to pull the door close behind him, slowly enough to avoid slamming it but fast enough to avoid agitating the hinges and betraying his plans for escape prematurely.

_Can't stay in one place long... Let's get moving. ._

He crossed the street in a hurry, ignoring the roughness and heat of the sun-cooked asphalt of the road on his bare feet. He took as long strides as he could verging on breaking into an outright run, for inside his very being screamed to get as far away as possible.

_BEEEEEEEEP_

He flinched at the suddenness of the sound of a car horn honking from barely a few feet's distance from him. He cursed his inattentiveness as he looked sideways through the windshield of a Volkswagen to see an angry young man wearing a baseball cap behind the wheel, eyes bugging out and face paling at having nearly ran over a twelve year-old.

He fled across the rest of the street, mortified to feel the stares of countless Muggles following him. He risked glancing up at the windows of a residence on the opposite side of the street and saw a middle-aged women looking at him in concern, and he tore his gaze away, heart pounding. The attention being drawn to him poured fuel on his paranoia, and he kept his gaze forward, trying not to conjure up the image of Tom watching him from the upper storey of the seer's home. He flexed his fingers again, but the unsettling tremor had not yet returned.

He was dressed in his undershirt and pants which alone were not so conspicuous, but his lack of shoes certainly was.

The worm of fear and anxiety was agitating inside of him. It made it difficult for him to focus his mind at the task at hand.

_But I must, _he thought.

Positively leaping onto the sidewalk, he made a beeline for the nearer end of the street.

What _was_ his task?

He ducked his gaze down as he raced past an elderly couple, unheeding of the grizzled husband who uttered a surprised yelp and was forced to hop aside to dodge the boy-missile.

_I have to send word to Dumbledore_.

Let him know that a grave threat had risen with the physical manifestation of Voldemort's younger self. If he could accomplish that, and he _knew _the old headmaster would know what to do. Ginny was dead at his hand, but she could be the last. It could all be set right.

But that meant _reaching_ Dumbledore, and he was a long ways off from that.

He rounded the corner and redoubled his pace, swerving left as he picked his direction on nothing but flight instinct.

He did not think, much less glance at the signs naming the streets at the intersection. He kept his eyes focused on what was in front of him so he could weave around passerby without smashing into people. He absolutely failed to register a black dog walking in front of him and nearly ran it over. Only an angry yell made him notice just in time, and by reflex he moved onto the grass of a lawn as the snarling, vicious-looking creature leapt up at him, straining the owner as he reined it in with the leash. Harry could only offer a breathless apology as he kept running. His feet pounded the pavement relentlessly, until his entire lower body was left numb.

Another intersection, this time he went right. He could only hope he was moving toward the edge of the neighborhood.

It was not until he felt he had built up a scant buffer of distance that he finally noticed that, after making another corner, the street had widened by quite a margin.

He slowed to a halt as he was given his first view on the city's impressive skyline looming over a line of homes, the setting sun bathing it in a golden glow. He averted his gaze to avoid the glare of the sunlight reflecting off the glass facades. He walked a dozen yards further, then his attention was drawn to a mass of blurry colored, entangled lines in the periphery of his vision. He adjusted his spectacles carefully and peered closely at the map of the city's public transportation service. It was plastered to the glass of an empty bus stop.

He read the name of the city: Birmingham.

"Okay," he said in a small voice, "That's not very good."

An idea sprung up, and he latched onto it, mind racing as fast as a Nimbus. He didn't need to get to Hogwarts and to Dumbledore's office all on his own - he could get to London and make his way to the Leaky Cauldron. There he'd find a friendly wizard or witch who would help him get a message sent.

A few minutes ticked past as he expectantly looked around, waiting for the bus.

Then he realized that this was going to be a little more complicated than that.

He had no idea of the time so the schedule of stops was useless to him. He had no change for the busfare, and he had no way of predicting how anyone would react if he asked for enough to board the bus when it did arrive. They were as likely to ignore him as a street urchin as they were to help him. Or they would go overboard and drag him off to the police station. That was itself a thought he considered, but he forcibly reminded himself that the Muggle authorities were as capable of protecting him as... Unable to think up a suitable analogy, he resumed his mad dash further away from the seer's house. Suffice it to say that his only chance rested with his ability to hide from Tom.

He dimly remembered the fact that Birmingham was one of the most populous cities in the United Kingdom, second only to London if he remembered elementary civics correctly. That would undoubtedly work in his favor. But he had to keep moving. He drilled the point home into his head over and over again.

His first priority was to disappear into the city, and right now he was keenly aware of just how close he was still to the house. Did the honking of that damn car alert Tom? A new stab of anxiety fueled the adrenaline coursing through his veins and he committed himself to disappearing into Birmingham's dense interior. From his quick lookover of the map he knew was in a little neighborhood nestled within the city not far from its outskirts. He had to move inward.

Before too long at his unrelenting pace, the rows of homes of the neighborhood gave way to the more metropolitan parts of the city.

The traffic was picking up in volume, and he saw that many cars were turning in onto a turnpike leading toward the vast clusters of skyscrapers and high-rises that formed the heart of the city. He determined that he would go there next. He looked around, and followed a long sloping street uphill till he reached a bridge.

It was only when he was a halfway across the footpath that he allowed himself to rest, leaning against the side of the bridge. Panting heavily, his mind was blissfully blank as he recovered from what had turned out to be a massive, prolonged sprint. He watched as the flow of cyclists and cars shot past. He turned around, and peered through the chain-link fence that continued above the shoulder-high walls guarding the side of the bridge.

Try as he might, he could not pinpoint the house he had fled. It was lost amidst an indistinguishable mass of trees and suburbanite sprawl.

_He'll find you... _the doubt within him voicing itself again.

He felt a very real twinge of worry as he considered that Tom must have discovered his absence.

But he was still roaming free, so he figured he had a shot at ultimately making it to London. That was all that mattered.

Allowing himself another five minutes of rest, he resumed his trek, this time at a more leisurely pace. While he had rested, the surge of adrenaline had receded and left him feeling fatigued. An ache had set in his feet; they were tender and he knew it would be unwise to run another marathon anytime soon.

Hopefully he would have no need.

The crowds soon swelled with people hauling their shopping bags and purses, chatting cattily to each other.

He wandered along with the crowds. Far from being intimidated, he felt that the masses of shoppers and pedestrians and the occasional watchful policemen and traffic guards served as a cloak for him, disguising his movements. The impersonal quality of the urban environment made him feel at ease.

There were maps of the concentrated area of the malls and the surrounding streets on display every few intersections. For all the good it did him; he was still unsure of his next move. Despite his relatively action-packed life, he was still a twelve year-old with scant frame of reference to make his way unaided in the second most populous city in the country. He was still trying to flesh out his plans. He did notice symbols that marked the locations to the train stations throughout Birmingham and out of the West Midlands. It wasn't that far to London. Maybe three hours or so, he judged.

He was rather strapped for cash, though. He frowned. Without his wand, he had to do things the Muggle method, and that required money. Somehow he had to overcome his lack of it.

A lump formed in his throat. The ever-moving stream of people flowed past him, and he feebly willed himself to open his mouth and ask someone for help. Nothing came out. he couldn't break the reluctance that held him back. He'd never considered himself arrogant, and certainly he would be the last person to ever have an entitlement complex…but he'd never expected to be reduced to _begging._

In a roundabout way, the Dursleys had done him a small favor through their callousness. Harry had never had to debase himself by begging for scraps: he knew he'd get nothing more than they gave. If they sentenced him to a stint in the cupboard, he knew that no amount of pleading or childish tears would move them to deduct a single hour. If anything, they would draw pleasure from his misery. So he never had reason to plead.

He glanced at a window to see his reflection looking back at him.

He looked waifish enough, more so if he could manage to cry. Maybe he'd try and tug on the sleeve of an older lady, surely she'd be more likely to feel sorry for him. If only some merciful soul would take pity on this poor lost boy and give him enough money to get him back to London. He would just be so grateful, and…

Countenancing the thought was unbearable.

He looked up bleakly at the faces passing him by. He hoped to see someone who looked kindly, or patient, someone he felt he would stand a better chance with. They moved just fast enough though he couldn't get a clear look long enough.

_Look at them... None of these people have the time nor inclination to help you..._

They were all too busy, and he was paralyzed, caught between his pride and his shyness to approach someone.

So he gave up. Slowly, he began trudging along, directionless.

He had to do _something_.

He kicked angrily at a plastic bag as it fluttered past. The wind snatched it out of his way before he made contact. It lingered before him as if teasing him, before drifting entirely out of sight.

What was the big picture here?

He had to remember what was at stake. No one else knew that the greatest threat posed to the wizarding world even existed. Tom was laying the groundwork for his future plans unchallenged. His mind put forth an endless stream of nightmare scenarios. A new reign of terror. Chaos as the Dark Lord's supporters rallied behind him. Hogwarts no longer the sanctuary it had always been.

He knew little of the events of the First War. Only that it had scarred his world and shaped his generation, and carved fear so deeply into the minds of grown witches and wizards that they were terrified of speaking Voldemort's name aloud.

Nothing might happen for months or even years. But once things were set into motion, there would be blood. And all of it would be on his hands if he failed here.

He caught sight of a tall, professional-looking fellow in a business suit leaving the first floor of a tall building not too far from here he was. The man was finishing donning a overcoat, and had a package fitted in the crook of one arm. In his hand was a little leather wallet, matte-black and sleek.

A darker thought crossed his mind.

Watching like a hawk, he waited for the man to finish looking at the receipt of his purchase. He was going on autopilot, paying no attention to his surroundings. The gentleman folded the reciept and stuck it into his wallet, sliding wallet into the outside pocket of his _overcoat_. It was loose enough that Harry was certain that he could make it with a quick snatch.

_He doesn't need it. Take his wallet off him and he'll have lost a pittance. Your cause is more important..._

He began moving toward him, shadowing a burly man accompanying a little daughter, subconsciously judging the man's strides and picking the spot where they would cross paths.

His Seeker hands twitched in anticipation - they had caught greater prizes than this.

The unwitting man took no notice of the boy drawing closer. In no time at all, the distance was halved.

_Just like catching a Snitch,_ Harry... the voice goaded him.

Harry braced himself and readied his hand -

'''Ey!"

The call was forceful, commanding.

He stopped.

The wealthy-looking fellow passed without so much as glancing at him, and Harry didn't move on inch even as the outside pocket fell within his reach.

He lowered his hand, shaken.

He swallowed, feeling a sick sensation in his stomach.

_Was I..._

Was he really about to rob someone just then? Beggary was too low for him, but he had been a hair's breadth from becoming a common thief? No better than Dudley and his gang shaking up kids for their lunch money?

He squeezed his eyes shut, and blew out a long, shuddering breath.

"You!"

It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't the voice of his own conscience that had brought him back from doing something he would regret - but another person. He turned his head to the side, peering into the shade of an alleyway.

He saw a homeless man lying against the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him. He was clad in tattered clothing, his jacket in slightly better shape than his torn-up jeans, but only just. His hair was long, scraggly, and grimed with dust.

"Yeah, you! Haul your midget ass over here," he slurred, motioning for Harry to come closer with his hand.

Harry was on the fence on coming another inch closer to him. The alleyway wasn't well lit, and the man didn't seem all there.

He looked back to the main thoroughfare, and could see the back of his would-be victim disappear from sight.

He did owe something to this fellow for unwittingly stopping him from becoming a thief. The stain on his conscience would take a long while to scrub off. So lieu of knowing what he was going to do otherwise, Harry decided to see what he had to say.

He walked toward the man cautiously, stopping a few feet short.

"You look dazed, kid."

"You look drunk," Harry retorted.

The man's eyebrows rose, and he raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "Okay, okay. No need to be that blunt."

Harry shrugged. "Anyways... what did you want?"

The man didn't say anything, instead taking a long draught from a half-empty whiskey bottle that had been hidden at his side. Harry watched with a neutral expression and waited for him to finish. Once drained, he threw it over the chain-link fence at the end of the alley, where it shattered upon landing.

"I'm kinda thirsty now," the man finally decided. He looked back up at Harry and blinked, as if seeing him for the first time, "Hey. You got any money kid?"

Harry cracked a smile and started laughing. The answer was such a cliché that he couldn't help but be amused. Was he expecting answers, a clarification of purpose? On some level, he supposed he had been. That first shout had snapped him out of a weird episode. It had been a fortuitous coincidence, a man calling out in a drunken stupor. Nothing else.

The man was starting to get offended.

Harry shut up. He cleared his throat and turned his pockets inside out.

"I'm in the same boat."

"Oh."

The drunkard lost interest in the penniless boy, shifting over to his side and starting to take a nap.

Rather let down by the whole encounter, Harry turned to leave, but the man shot up straight.

"Wait a sec!"

He rubbed at his eyes, then peered more closely at his visitor. His eyes drifted down.

"God damn, in a right spot you are. You aren't wearing a single shoe!" he exclaimed.

The man was right. Harry wasn't even wearing one shoe.

"Asking a juvenile street rat for change, how low can you go?" he scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief.

The man looked genuinely saddened at this realization and at Harry's youth, and it fired him up from the comfortable buzz. His eyes looked more alert when he looked back up, scrutinizing his form.

"You haven't been out on the streets for too long," he observed, resting his chin on a hand as he sat cross-legged. "Just trying to figure out what to do, eh?"

Harry nodded. That was more or less his situation.

"Ah. I know the feeling," he said sagely.

"I mean, I have _some_ idea of what to do," Harry was quick to add. He hoped the despair had not crept into his voice.

His plan was vague and rather big-picture, true, but it wasn't as if he were _completely_ out of his depth, he reasoned.

The man quietly absorbed this. He looked like he was waging an internal struggle. A look of guilt came over him, and he had clearly gleaned that Harry was in a bad situation.

"Sorry kid, I can't help you," he said abruptly. He turned away, curling up.

His nerves were starting to get the better of him. Harry suppressed a flash of irritation.

"Okay, I'll be going on my way."

As soon as he turned though, the man bolted upright again.

"Damn it! Yeah, just go ahead and emotionally blackmail a total stranger. Stupid fucking kids and their guilt-tripping sad eyes," the man cursed vigorously.

Harry watched completely non-plussed. As far as he knew he'd been schooling his features into a relatively mild expression.

""Okay," the man declared gruffly, "I'll help you."

He looked up at some of the emergency fire escapes to the apartments above. The man grunted as he hauled himself onto his feet, and Harry winced at the noise of his back creaking as he went through a variety of stretches vigorously, as if preparing for a workout at a gym.

The ladder from the lowest landing attached to the apartments didn't reach the ground level, but that didn't faze him. He made a show of bending his knees and swinging his arms back and forth in tandem as he warmed himself up for a long jump.

Now that he was standing and not slouched over dead drunk against a wall, Harry could see that the man was fairly tall, though there was still a height difference of several feet between the top of his head and the lowest landing he seemed to want to access.

The man rolled up his sleeves and backed up to the opposite side of the alley and rubbed his hand. He took a running start and leaped. His foot met the wall and he instantly pushed onto his toes as they met the bricks, levering up enough to grasp the bottom of the landing. Huffing and puffing, he pulled himself onto it. He picked up a pot at the corner, and unceremoniously yanked out the leafy plant it harbored, sending soil scattering everywhere. He rummaged through to the bottom of the pot, and produced a satchel. He nonchalantly dropped back down to the alley, sinking low as he met the ground to dissipate the energy of the fall. Opening it, he started withdrawing fistfuls of banknotes and stashing them into the inside pockets of his jacket. Some were crumpled up by messy folding technique and others were slightly faded by water damage, but Harry got a good enough look to see the denominations printed at their edges.

He blinked in surprise. If they weren't counterfeit, then this was the most well-off homeless bloke he'd ever met.

"There's a nice department store just a block down from here. They'll have shoes in your size. Let's go on over," he said confidently, moving to where the alley fed into the main street.

Harry was a little perplexed at this unprompted and rather sudden display of charity.

The drunkard – who somehow no longer seemed as drunk - noticed Harry's reticence.

"I ain't a kidnapper or nothing like that," he said indignantly, "We'll be where everyone can see us if that reassures you. Plus, it's about time I switched alleys anyway."

For lack of a better plan, Harry shuffled over and followed the man's lead.

It even fit into the master plan as a little sub-item, getting shoes.

They made an odd pair.

_The homeless guy and his sidekick,_ Harry thought.

Whereas passerby had paid him no attention, they had a more pronounced response to his new companion, making a point of actively swerving out of his way and keeping a distance. They looked nothing alike so there were concerned looks sent his way, but thankfully no one made to separate them.

"It's going to start getting cold out in an hour or so. Remember, you can always just drink alcohol and it'll warm you right up," the man lectured, careless to the reactions of others.

"Thanks," Harry said dryly.

The man was amusing in his own way.

"Do you know where you're going?"

"Course I do. I've got the maps of entire boroughs and cities all memorized, up here in my noggin," he bragged, tapping the side of his head.

He certainly looked like he knew where he was going. Of course, fools could be as confident as wise men. That was no guarantee that he actually knew what he was talking about.

A suspicion was brewing though, and Harry had to lay it to rest.

"Sir?"

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you… you know, drunk?" he asked as tactfully as he could.

"Nope."

"Oh," Harry said, frowning.

The man said it with such conviction that he decided he'd just leave it at that.

"Hey kid."

"Yes?"

"Cool scar," he said, without looking sideways at him.

Thankfully, the man didn't stare. He sounded like he meant it, so Harry took it for a compliment.

"Oh. Thanks. People say that to me all the time."

"How'd you get it?"

"I got it in a car crash."

"You don't sound like you mean it."

Harry set his mouth into a thin line at the insinuation, but his companion didn't push the issue.

"Left here."

They reached the entrance of the department store, a long sequence of doors laying in front of them to accommodate the flow of people in and out.

"Here," he said, handing Harry a one-hundred pound bill. "And get something to eat for us on the way out. Something hot, preferably."

Harry accepted it. "Um, thank you sir. What about you?"

"I'm going to the barber's shop," he said, pulling a long strand of dull hair in front of his eyes and making a face. "Take your time. And don't get lost."

* * *

As it turned out, Harry was going to have to take his time whether he wanted to or not. The department store was connected to a wider mall complex, all lit by the long, angled skylights that met to form a triangle. He mentally made a note that he'd come in through the southwest entrance, and kept track of where he was going. Not that he was overly concerned about getting lost, it wasn't as if shoe stores were going to be too far afield.

The place was abuzz with chatter. He did distinctly look out of place barefoot, but he was well-used to the stares by now. He went up the escalators, and watched the bustle of hundreds of families doing their summer shopping over the side of the handrail.

He pondered the sense of scale laid out before him. Diagon Alley was dwarfed by it, its main street falling well short of matching the length of the central walkway. The Wizarding World was minuscule in comparison. Here, in this few hundred meters of commercial complex, there were more Muggles than every child, professor, and ghost of all four Houses.

There were probably half a dozen others like it in this single city, and numerous smaller ones. He wondered how many were there in the entire United Kingdom.

There was a kind of grandeur to it that Harry hadn't appreciated till now. Hagrid had once told him that the wizards kept to themselves because they didn't want to be bothered. But maybe there was something else to it.

The throngs were just as numerous on the second floor. Sales representatives seeking to notch a sale were engaging customers in the aisles of the shops, trying not to seem overly aggressive. He moved hurriedly. A security guard glanced at him briefly, before returning to reading his newspaper.

He walked into the children's section and browsed the rows of boxes punctuated by pristine, fresh pairs of shoes on display. He ignored the whining of a bratty boy not far from his own age, and picked out a pair of sneakers that looked nice. Black with slim white linings, it looked sharp and he could run in it. It was good enough for him.

He seated himself at one of the benches and tried them on, wiggling his toes and testing the fit.

Satisfied, he went to the sales counter and handed a hundred-pound note expectantly. He declined a bag and the bored-looking girl at the cash register handed the shoes back with his receipt and change.

He halted in midstep on his way out, remembering to get socks, and went back.

The first thing he did upon leaving was take a detour to the restrooms. Ducking into the men's room, he set his box securely onto the counter with the pair of socks lying atop it. He hurriedly pulled a dozen paper towels from the dispenser and dashed them under the water faucet to get them sufficiently wet. He balanced himself on one foot and scrubbed the other with the fury of a ravenous Cerberus. He switched to the other foot, and after drying himself thoroughly, he put on the socks and shoes, throwing the box away.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he headed back towards the escalators. His tenderized feet had been right at the edge of giving under him. He idly wondered whether Dumbledore had ever had a similar kind of experience that led to his peculiar fondness of socks. It was fun little speculation.

Mood brightened, he browsed the restaurants back on the ground level. He wasn't sure what Albert wanted and he didn't fancy anything in particular, so got Italian paninis and chips along with bottles of water.

He headed out.

_Objective: acquire socks completed._

* * *

By now, the last vestiges of light were starting to fade with the sunset and the air felt distinctly cooler. Harry took the paper bag of the meal he'd bought to an unoccupied table near the street corner where his generous homeless friend had told him to wait.

It wasn't long before he noticed vaguely familiar man coming over.

He'd replaced the jeans with a fresh pair of black trousers that closely fit him. He'd kept the brown jacket. His hair was still moist from washing, though it wasn't much shorter. He hadn't taken much off, and had most of his hair swept to the side save for a few stray forelocks that hung over his forehead. There was enough of a natural wave that it held. His shirt beneath the jacket had cartoonish-looking cat and cactus hybrid. The thorny green thing was rather cute in all honesty.

His face freshly shaven, he looked an ordinary guy in casual dress, a far cry from what he'd look like a few hours ago.

"Hey," he greeted cheerfully as he reached Harry, seating himself across from him. "You got something for us to eat?"

Harry pushed the second bag across the table.

"You didn't have to wait on me," the man remarked as he unwrapped his meal. "You're polite. I can tell you had good upbringing."

Harry ducked his head, embarrassed that he'd noticed. The last comment was off-base, but correcting him on that would have been pointless.

Both were hungry, and started wolfing down their sandwiches. Still warm from the press, the toasted bread was crunchy, but they were determined to make short work of it.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Albert." The man looked up and reached across the table, offering Harry his hand.

He gladly took it, shaking it as firmly as he could.

"I'm Harry. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. How're the new shoes treating you?"

"Great. Thank you very much sir," Harry said earnestly. "Listen, I just really appreciate your being so nice, and… and-"

"Not at all… I did what any decent person would have done," Albert again waved him off, returning to his food.

"I'll repay you, eventually," Harry said.

Albert smiled. "A good deed is its own reward."

Harry felt the urge to say more – but he was also deathly ravenous, and he hadn't eaten enough to take the edge off the hunger, so he dived back into his sandwich.

They ate in silence for a while. Neither had good manners and ate far too fast for polite company, but there was a mutual, unspoken understanding that they wouldn't judge each other by the usual standard of etiquette.

Albert beat him to the end of the sandwich. He sighed in satisfaction, taking a minute to relax before as he opened up the complementary bag of potato chips and started popping them into his mouth at a much more relaxed pace.

"If you don't mind me asking, what brought you into the general vicinity of my alleyway? I'm curious."

"Like you said," Harry said, chomping down around a mouthful of salami, ham, and cheese, "I had to make a run for it not too long ago. I've only been wandering around here since this morning."

"I thought so. I mean, you still had the look of someone new to the streets."

Albert wiped his hands free of crumbs.

"I am too," he confided, "You know, between places. I used to be in a… violent line of work as recently as a few months ago."

The admission was so utterly frank that Harry had to consciously process the statement and decide how he was going to react.

He took it for granted that he wasn't going to run screaming, regardless of what heinous crimes he might have committed. He could be Hannibal Lecter reincarnate, and he wouldn't care less. He was too damned tired.

And maybe he went he was into professional fighting, in which case Harry saw no reason to judge someone negatively for an honest livelihood.

"Why are you on the run?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Ah well. My story isn't very child-friendly. Sure you want to hear a scandalizing tale of drugs, double-crossings, beautiful femme fatales, and stone-cold killers?"

Of course, Harry wasn't deterred by the warning (which he thought was almost delivered deliberately to make it more tempting). The obvious proposal was there, waiting to be made.

"How about we exchange stories?" he said eagerly.

Albert chuckled.

"Is this where you tell me how you actually got that scar?"

Harry thought for a moment.

"Sure!"

"In that case… fine. You owe me though, so you go first."

The truth was stranger than fiction.

"Well, I'm a wizard," Harry said bluntly.

Albert made a scoffing noise, but it was good-natured and his eyes were mirthful.

"I see."

"I'm on the run from the dark lord who killed my parents."

His stony facade breaking, Albert began laughing, leaning back in his chair.

"Okaaaaaay," he snickered, "Why don't you show me a magic trick? So I know you're not pulling one over me."

"I would, but I can't, cause I don't have my wand," Harry said matter-of-factly. "Can't do anything without it."

Albert chuckled as he contemplated his answer. It wasn't a laugh-out-loud hilarious thing to say, but the longer Harry held his gaze with that intense look of conviction and honesty, the funnier it became over time.

Finally, he cracked, and started laughing. He laughed harder than he had before, then he started choking. But he didn't stop laughing even as his face turned an alarming shade of red. Jumping up, Harry shoved his chair back and raced over. He swung his arm as hard as he could, slapping Albert's back until he coughed up the food he'd accidentally swallowed. He went on right on laughing, even though now it sounded like dry-heaving.

"Ahahahahaha," Albert rasped out pitifully, wiping at his eyes. "Hahaha!"

He took the napkin offered to him by Harry and pressed it to this mouth. The table shook as he brought a fist down in an effort to steady himself and ride out the rest of the laughing fit.

Albert finally looked up.

"You are one icy, smartass kid. Just said all of that without so much as blinking," he croaked, voice still tremulous from laughing, "Are you sure you didn't just gave yourself a scar because it looked cool or something?'

Harry's face flushed red. "What? No – _what?!" _he sputtered. "Of course not! That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard! People just don't give themselves scars just because they look cool!"

"People _do!_" Albert countered just as hotly.

Harry's indignation melted away, and now he was the one fighting off a sudden bout of laughter at the ridiculous assertion, his anger defused.

"Hehe, relax, relax. I believe you. Hahahaha… Want to hear _my _story?"

Harry calmed himself down, straightening his back and generally making a show of giving Albert his full attention.

"I was telling the truth, so I expect you to as well," he warned.

Albert took one look at his stern expression, and immediately looked down, mouth twisting as he fought to keep his face straight.

He exhaled slowly. He looked back up at Harry and was all business.

"Okay. By violent line of work, I meant organized crime," he said, a calm looking settling over his features.

There went the possibility of being a trained boxer or cage fighter.

"Oh," Harry said, unsure of what to make of it. "Um, how big or organized do you mean?"

"One big happy family," he said shortly. "My branch worked out of the South Midlands, where I was in charge of the Milton Keynes. Lots of open places there. Excellent for body disposal. A few pretty decent pubs, too."

"How come you're not working with them anymore?"

Harry leaned forward, munching energetically on his panini.

"It's kind of a fucked up story. I got this chick pregnant... Very fine bird," he reminiscenced and he leaned onto the rear legs of the chair as he looked skyward, a fond look on his face, "... but her father was my boss."

"Oh wow."

Harry had seen enough movies to think that didn't seem very smart. The sentiment must have showed on his face because a rueful smile appeared on Albert's.

"As you can imagine, mafia consiglieres don't take too kindly to lowly enforcers messing around with their daughters. They have the guns and guts to act out in ways the little people can't."

He heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"You do everything right, the seduction goes without a hitch, you pick what you think is a discrete location, and you even pull out of her just like you planned."

He shook his head in seeming disgust.

"What do you mean by that last part?" Harry inquired.

"Oh." It finally dawned on Albert that he was talking to a kid quite a ways from his teenage years. "You know… when you have sex but don't want the girl to get pregnant."

Harry's understanding of human reproduction was murky at best, but he was sure he had heard of what Albert had referred to somehow, in one context or another.

"Doesn't that not work?" he asked, wrinkling his nose owlishly.

"Apparently not," Albert said sourly. "_But…"_

Here he raised a finger dramatically, "You see, I had the foresight to pioneer a revolutionary secondary method to fall back on if the first ever fails. In the event of the unthinkable, when your first line of defense has fallen - you _pull out _of the country. Clever, eh?"

Harry smiled disbelievingly, somewhat bewildered by this whole line of conversation. He liked this friendly former mobster a lot, but the concept of someone walking out on a situation like put a bitter taste in his mouth, and left him conflicted. And the entire subject made him feel awkward. He hadn't even kissed a girl on the cheek yet.

"Does that mean you… you have a kid?" Albert looked awfully young to be a father.

"Well, no, cause she got rid of it a few weeks into the pregnancy. But her father found out…"

The easygoing aura that had surrounded Albert like a second skin was diminished, and a brooding quality laced his words.

"How come? Was he watching or something?" Harry asked, the confusion evident in his voice. It had seemed like Albert had done it with subtlety, only for it to turn out he had been caught.

"What? NO!" Albert yelled, looking at him with a disturbed expression, "She normally has a shadow, a bodyguard. I thought we'd given him the slip, but he put two and two together… Surprising, actually. Always thought he was dumb muscle and brawn… Anyway, here I am."

"Haven't really gotten out of the country though," he added, scratching at his chin. "Still working on that part."

"Oh! That was what all that money was for?" Harry gasped, "Sorry! I'm so sorry about that."

Albert waved his fretful apologies away dismissively.

"'All that money?'Hah! I used to blow that much on poker every week, and still had enough left over to live like a king!" he bragged. "Making money isn't hard. You have a skillset, and you find someone who wants to use it, and you get your money. So think nothing of it. I'm not so cruel and heartless I'd just ignore a kid in a situation like yours."

He stopped balancing on the rear legs of the chair and let it fall forward.

"You know… I'm actually glad I called you over and helped you out. I hadn't done something my folks would've approved of in quite a while."

"Yeah," Harry said, swallowing.

_How would your own parents react to your actions, in the Chamber? Do you think they would have approved…? _

"Heh. I'm been such a demoralized wreck," Albert said with a self-depreciating laugh. "It shakes you up, when your whole life turns upside down. When your bank account gets frozen, you can't show your face where you used to be the guy running the joint… after you've put everything into building your life up, and it all just comes… tumbling down."

He held his hand in front of him and wriggled his fingers, pantomiming a collapsing house of cards, before letting his hand fall and thud onto the table.

"Is it tough, being on the run from so many people?"

Albert considered the question.

"Well, I've been avoiding the motels. Had to make do under bridges, dark alleyways, fight off the occasional junkie… But there's no choice. You check in at the wrong place, and you might have visitors inside of ten minutes flat."

That explained why he'd been crashing in the alleyway despite the respectable sum of money he'd amassed.

"What about any friends that would let you stay over?" Harry probed further, starting to have a sense of what Albert's life had been like.

"I never really had any outside the family," Albert hung his head, thinking. "Never was the best at striking a good work-life balance."

Loneliness, Harry thought.

Maybe it wasn't mere luck that had driven Albert to call out to him drunkenly.

"And you have to keep your face hidden, plus you can't stay in any one place too long. That's the most important thing. I mean, there are ways around it, but they can get into extreme territory. I, for one, am not going to get facial reconstruction surgery willy-nilly. I mean, would you if you had a visage of masculine perfection like mine?" Albert asked with a winning smile.

"Yes," Harry said seriously.

"Awwww…" Albert deflated visibly. "Harsh, my friend. Very harsh."

"Honest," Harry countered, "Seems like a small price to pay for eliminating such a big risk. I'd rather let it go… just start over."

"It's part of who you are," Albert said mildly. "I'd just never get used to seeing someone else's face in the mirror. I'd always wish I'd dealt with the burden of my identity. That's the last thing these cocksuckers will take away from me."

"Hm," Harry made a noncommittal noise.

"You know, the timing has been interesting. I'd been in a rut for weeks," Albert said with a hollow laugh. "For some reason talking to you got me to stop drowning myself in hard alcohol for a while... I remembered I wasn't there to just die of liver failure."

"Yeah, I feel the same! I wasn't in a really good position either, right before I ran into you," Harry said brightly.

They fell into a contemplative silence.

The street lights were starting to turn on, banishing the darkness that was starting to set in and keeping the shadows at bay.

"Albert," Harry began, "do you know how I can find a way to London?"

"Ah. Did a little recon work after having my hair cut. Morris Avenue, train station. The next train out to London is two days from now. We should have no problem boarding when it arrives."

Simple enough. The only cause for concern was that it meant staying here another forty-eight hours in the same city as _him_.

"It'll be the fastest way," Albert continued, ticking off the reasons for taking this course of action with his fingers, "We get on in Birmingham, get off in London. No hassles, no delays, no sidetracking. We're here, communicating in person, with no way for anyone to eavesdrop. There's zero chance we get surprised."

"Can you take me there sooner?"

"Sooner than two days?" Albert raised an intrigued eyebrow.

"I… I can't let someone find me."

"You mean this dark lord of yours?" Albert asked, the humor evident in his voice, but the real urgency in Harry's eyes gave him pause. "Hey look, I believe you… If someone is after you, I think I might be able to help you, whoever this guy is. Then you don't have to worry about anyone and keep looking over your shoulder."

Harry's fingers dug into the tablecloth. "That won't be necessary. I just have to get away from him, that's all that matters. If he finds me, you simply walk away. Period," he hissed.

"Jesus," Albert remarked, smiling uncertainly. "Okay, I'll respect your wishes."

"Good."

"That still leaves the issue of lodging though," Albert said with a frown.

Harry didn't see the problem.

"That's fine! I'll just stay out here, with you."

"No," Albert shook his head adamantly. "Christ, I'm not about to let you sleep out here in the streets. I still plan on getting some sleep, and don't want you getting snatched. There's a better option."

He held up his hand to forestall any protestations. He thought intently for a moment.

"Birmingham Central Library," he declared. "Third floor, there's an administrative area for collections with access to a separate stairway that no one ever checks. You can sleep there undisturbed. You hang out around there while I need to retrieve a few things from my caches across the city, I should be done by the time the train arrives. Do you follow?"

Harry nodded vigorously.

"One more order of business," Albert said, taking a sip from his water bottle. He set it down, folded his arms, and fixed Harry with a solemn look.

"What's that?"

"We need to give you a mafioso soubriquet."

"A mafioso sobrio-what?" Harry echoed.

"It's just for fun," Albert said, grinning widely, ". At least until we get to London, we're partners in crime. And that means you need a nickname."

"Uh-huh…"

"Mine's Arsonist Albert – I know what you're thinking! Before you ask, no I didn't burn down things or immolate my enemies alive," he added hastily. "It's just because of the alliteration."

Harry cracked a reluctant grin.

"Okay," he agreed.

"Alright," Albert said, a delighted smile on his lips as he rubbed his hands together as if plotting, "Let's figure one out for you. Think of something that starts with 'H', and then put that before your name."

He remembered playing cops and robbers at school. It was the faintest memory, before Dudley had poisoned the well with his peers. It had been fun while it lasted.

"Hacker Harry?" he offered.

"Hey come now. It's your own name we're talking about here, you're not even excited about it. No no, let's not settle for mediocrity."

"Oh…"

It was really the only crime-related thing he could think of.

"Aw yeah, I got it," Albert exclaimed, snapping his fingers, "Hooligan Harry!"

That actually sounded pretty good to Harry's untrained ear. He opened his mouth to say as such –

"No WAIT!"

Albert's eyes narrowed, studying Harry's face closely.

He snapped his fingers, and spoke in a low, deadly serious baritone. He raised his hands in front of him for effect.

"_Hostage-taking Harry."_

He leaned back, smug as a cat.

"What do you think?"

"Well," Harry ventured to say, "I actually kinda thought the first one sounded pretty neat."

"See, that's where you're wrong. Hooliganism isn't very high up on the criminal hierarchy. Hostage-taking is way more badass, and it still fits in with the alliterative theme," Albert said firmly.

"Whatever." Harry shrugged, trying to hide his disappointment. "It's fine by me."

"I mean, check this out: _Hostage. Taking. Harry," _he recited forcefully, punctuating each word with a vicious jab of his index finger in Harry's direction. "One hundred percent _pure aggression_, truly befitting a man of action. My God that is terrifying. Just raw, unadulterated, hostility."

"Man, I can see you in another ten years. A lean, mean, killing machine with a scar to match. Who takes hostages."

"And…" He trailed off, seeing that Harry wasn't buying it.

"Trust me, it'll grow on you," Albert said with a wink.

Their attention was drawn to a bus rounding the corner. "Anyhow. We should get on our way. We don't want to get there after the library's closing time."

They hurried to the bus stop and got there in time to board just as the last person already there waiting finished paying the fare.

They found adjacent empty seats and relaxed, Albert checking the routes printed above the midsection doors and making sure they were headed in the right direction.

Sleepiness was starting to overtake Harry. His eyelids drooped, the weak fluorescent lights overhead blurring together with the amber outside. Albert kept an eye on the bus's progress toward their destination.

He curled up against the window, trying to get into the most comfortable position. Albert's silhouette was unmoving in the corner of his eye. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall asleep, mind thankfully blank.

* * *

"Hey," Albert said suddenly, jolting Harry from his nap.

"What's that," Harry mumbled. Hardly any time seemed to have past.

"That building we're coming up on," he said, pointing to a tall skyscraper visible through the windshield.

Harry shook the cobwebs from his mind. He'd never taken very well to having his sleep interrupted, but Albert's words penetrated and he peered over the seat in front of him.

There were still workers visible in the windows, working in the cubicles and clocking overtime hours.

"Pulled off my first heist there," Albert whispered. "A corporate rival wanted design specs, so I impersonated a middle manager. Took his credentials, walked right in, threatened the access codes off him, downloaded half a database's worth of info. Had to handle a few tricky confrontations with people who knew the real guy."

"Whoa, really?" Harry whispered back, his interest piqued.

"No, it's just a random office building. I just made that all up to wake you, since we're almost there," Albert said in a deadpan voice, before breaking out into quiet laughter. "You're so gullible."

"You know, you're an asshat," Harry said, upset.

"Nuh-uh! By criminal standards, I'm positively an angel. Only killed a couple of folks, didn't even rob people except for, like, a few times. I mainly just enforced debts - which, in a way, is kind of noble. And on top of that, I split the costs for the abortion procedure," he said haughtily.

"Woooow, you split the abortion costs," Harry repeated sarcastically. "You're a paragon of virtue aren't you. A real Mother Teresa."

"Bet your fucking ass I am."

They bantered back and forth in hushed tones, careful so that the other passengers wouldn't overhear. Harry had to stifle giggles more than once at the sheer, uninhibited shamelessness of his friend. He felt buoyed by a sense of lightness. He'd never made a lasting friend amongst the Muggles, but he thought Albert might become one. The man knew nothing of his true identity, but they were getting along well.

It was a first.

_"Approaching Centenary Square," _the driver's voice droned over the intercom.

The bus drew to a stop, and they were the last to disembark. There was a sharp wind at their backs, and Harry shivered as they walked toward an austere-looking monument that was the centerpiece of the square. Albert turned up his collar and buried his hands into his pockets but seemed otherwise unbothered by the temperature.

They followed the circular path surrounding the monument in a counterclockwise direction. Harry's eyes were drawn to it, but though relatively well-lit, he couldn't make much of it. Statues mounted on pedestal-like outcroppings bordered it like sentries, and it was crowned by a white dome.

"You can check it out in the morning," Albert said lightly, nudging him. "It's a neat memorial. But we gotta get inside first."

Harry tore his gaze from it. The circle of stone fed into a path that led between two massive buildings with dark-tinted windows.

"Made it. Birmingham Central Library."

Beyond the entranced framed by the two buildings, the library awaited.

Harry peered up. It was imposing, a word not often associated with libraries. It had a three-tiered structure pyramidal structure, and easily towered dozens of meters into the night sky. Dark, interlocking metal rings were overlaid over its exterior. Underlying that layer were silvery mental rings that duplicated the pattern, but on a smaller scale, creating a fractal effect for the onlooker below.

"Biggest public library in the UK," Albert explained. "More damn books here than you shake Shakespeare's dick at."

"Thanks," Harry said, shooting him a disgusted glare. "You could have just said there were a lot of books."

"You didn't think that was funny?" Albert said with a hurt look, "Laaaame."

"Okay it was a little bit funny," Harry acknowledged grudgingly, "It's just kind of a messed up analogy. And he was a great poet and all."

"That's true."

"Hey, you ever hear the crazy theory about his authorship?"

"What?"

Harry scrunched up his face in concentration as he tried to recall.

"I caught a snippet of this documentary, at my aunt's and uncle's house. Some Oxford professor was saying that maybe he took the credit for someone else's work."

They began trudging up the stairs leading up to the library's entrance.

"Nah… if you've read his stuff, it's clear that he's the same writer. The major tenets of his style are unmistakable. Either he's the real deal, or he somehow he had the same ghostwriter all the way through... That would be the most ridiculous confidence game of all time."

"Hm. Just thought it was interesting... Have you read any Shakespeare?"

"Pffft, I've read all of it. I played Othello in secondary school, you know."

"Oh cool!"

"I owned that role, by the way. The director said I was so great he started crying."

Harry snickered again at his self-aggrandizement.

"What happens in that play?"

"If you really want to know, you should read it. Go ask the librarian where it is in the morning."

They reached the top of the steps.

"Time flies," Albert said, smiling as he turned to face Harry. "This is where we part ways for now."

"Are you going in too?"

"Me?" he said looking down at himself, wrinkling his nose comically. "Security would toss me out the moment they set eyes on me, and besides, I'd get the books dirty. I've got nothing against books, so that'd be a real shame."

"We'll meet up over there in two days' time," he said, turning to point back to the memorial behind them. "Can't miss it. At noon, so you have time to sleep in."

Harry felt like he had to say something.

"Hey, Albert," Harry said, tugging on the older man's sleeve hesitatingly.

The ex-mafioso turned back to look down at him.

"When you yelled at me, and caught my attention, you..." Harry searched for the proper words, "You snapped me out of this... very strange state of mind. Right when I was about to st-ste..."

Albert cocked his hand to the side, waiting.

"Thank you," Harry finished lamely, looking down at his feet. "I'm glad we met."

Albert sighed, bending his knees so that he was at eye level with his new young charge. He reached over to Harry's head with one hand, and into his jacket with the other. He extracted something, a small black object, and pressed it into Harry' shands.

"Here, this is my backup wallet," he said conspiratorially, "There's enough money in it so you can eat decently until we rendezvous. More than enough. Try not to spend it all."

Harry thumbed through its contents. There were several cards mixed in with the greatest abundance of bills he'd ever held in his hands.

"I'm counting on you to not lose it. Can I trust you?"

He nodded solemnly, and slipped it inside his pocket. Albert's smile widened, and he rose.

"You're a good kid," he said warmly, ruffling Harry's hair. "I'll see you in two days' time, and then we'll be on our way to bigger and better things. Alright?"

Harry nodded silently, any words he might have thought to say stuck in his throat.

Albert descended down the steps, whistling a warbling but energetic tune. He paused to look over his shoulder at Harry who was still watching him. Grinning, he waved unabashedly.

Harry mustered up a smile, and waved back in answer.

Watching the tall figure of his partner in crime reach the square and disappear from sight, Harry tried to reorder his thoughts. His mood was calm, pensive. Part of it he supposed could be attributed to the fatigue, as the day's events caught up with him physically. But the rest was that he genuinely felt _better_.

_There's no reason to be morose, _he reflected. Against all odds, a day that had begun on a massively rough start was turning out to be ending on a good note. And he'd made a great - though highly unusual – new friend.

He hardly dared to, but he felt optimism.

He opened the door.

_So…_

"Hostage-taking Harry," he spoke aloud as he walked into the tall entrance hall, testing the sound of it.

Unfortunately, the acoustics of the hall's interior floated his mutterings beyond the range he expected. He looked up innocently at the teenage girl who glanced at him on her way out, as if hurt that this stranger could ever misinterpret him as saying something so horrible. She smiled back as they passed, and her footsteps terminated in the opening of the door and then the sound of it shutting.

Albert had been right. The way the emphasis fell on the first syllables gave a bold and rather hostile ring to it. If an actual, hardened, hostage-taking criminal mastermind with that moniker existed, Harry would go to great lengths to make sure they never crossed paths.

Hooligan still sounded better though, in his opinion.

* * *

What do you think?

This is going to be ambitious, but I'm making a push to break the 40K word barrier by the end of the year. I have a few thousand words scattered over the next two chapters and know what I want to write, so I'm feeling optimistic. Please feel free to leave reviews and feedback, I'd love the encouragement.


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